Reported by John Shannon
Earlier this year, illness kept overseer Connie Wright from
her normal trail work of keeping a section of AT north of Doyles River Trail
cleared. To help out, Ruth Douglas and I did some clearing on the southern half
of this section earlier this summer. Now the Flying
McLeods wanted to help out, too.
Al Dahler and I cleaned out waterbars, and I did some
remodeling of some to try to get water to flow off the trail better. Thanks to
previous trips with other members of Charlottesville Chapter, numerous drainage
structures were working, so today's project involved maintenance and
improvement, rather than building or rebuilding.
Warm sunshine and flies buzzing around us made this work
tiresome. After reaching an overlook halfway along, Al and I were tired of
digging dirt, so I swapped a McLeod to loppers while Al took a break. Mark
Gatewood cleared vegetation with a brush cutter, until it stopped
working. Mark had hoped to meet Connie Wright coming from the north. He
ended up driving to Simmons Gap Ranger Station in an unsuccessful search
for a working brush cutter, so he instead started cutting his way south with a
swingblade. I met him in an area of tall pokeweed that crowded the trail,
along with some briars in the mix. The weeds were easy to cut but were
abundant.
After opening up a section that was narrow, it was time for
me to head out, with a couple of stops to slow bittersweet that will kill the
few trees and make weed and shrub growth worse. A new co-overseer recruited
during the Little Calf Mountain
relocation will help keep this heavily used section in good condition.
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