After snow falls of winter, spring finally arrived, making
it time for spring cleaning on the Appalachian Trail .
Marian Styles and John Shannon left their own weeds and fur balls to make the
chapter’s section of Appalachian Trail ready for the season. With a small crew,
we made the priorities the ends of the section, which have the most water
control structures. Because of some earlier cleaning, and good design, there
was not a lot of cleaning, but as usual, a little tweeking to try to improve
water diversion efficiency. To prevent, or slow, the trail becoming a wasteland
of weeds, we also removed garlic mustard, which was less plentiful than
expected, a sign of hope that previous efforts had an effect. However
multiflora rose is growing prolifically at McCormick Gap, and we cut back some.
Near Rockfish Gap, we continued to thin out a large patch of bittersweet which
was discovered after it contributed to the fall of a tree in last year’s
derecho.
 |
| Marian Styles clearing out a water diversion near Rockfish Gap |
Several backpackers thanked us for our efforts. Another sight was a large black snake on the side of a trail. After several minutes, it started into a hole in a stump, and half an hour later, it had disappeared after its sun bath.
No comments:
Post a Comment