So Many Waterbars, So Little Time - May 7, 2011

After a report of some trees down on the Chapter’s section of Appalachian Trail, and realizing spring rain had fallen, and plants were growing again, I decided it was time to visit the chapter’s section of the AT again. With Marian Styles, I headed to Rockfish Gap where I cleaned out waterbars and other drainage structures which had accumulated a lot of leaf material over winter. As usual, I did a little reshaping as well. On one steep downhill section there was some visible erosion, but not as bad as seen on a trip elsewhere two weeks earlier. I did some more trail regrading to reduce future erosion. Marian removed some vegetation that should not be in the trail corridor. Finally the waterbars were finished, so we headed south. First stop was an area where we have reduced the amount of bittersweet over the last few years, but as expected, roots keep sprouting, and there was a patch I probably missed last year. By now it was time for lunch. With just two of us, a small chocolate raspberry cake was plenty, and there were left overs. We left bittersweet looking for blowdowns reported earlier, and through hikers confirmed there were some trees down. The first did not match the report I had, but the next did; Marian did most of the cutting. Then a large log we saw in the snow earlier in the year. I removed one branch, but the trunk was too large for my saw. However, people can easily walk around it, especially after I removed a pointed piece sticking out. Then the question was if there was another tree down. By now, all the north bound backpackers had passed so we could not ask anyone if there were more trees down, but then we found the second reported tree. It was relatively small. We also stopped at a spring which in the past was overgrown with multiflora rose, which the chapter has largely cut back, so that now we can go a little further back to see major bittersweet growth. Today we neutralized and suppressed some large vines, so that next time it will be easier to see more and hopefully a couple of tree will survive. During the final descent to McCormick Gap, we removed the garlic mustard in flower; there is more, but perhaps we selected against the early bloomers, leaving the weaker plants.

During the day, several through hikers walked by, and all who stopped to speak to us thanked us for our work.