Progress in Trail Upkeep - January 28, 2012

Plans to help other Appalachian Trail clubs with maintenance of trails in wilderness areas fell through, so with recent mild weather, we went to continue drainage improvements on the Appalachian Trail north of Doyles River, where for the past several years, we have been restoring and creating drains and regrading short sections to slow erosion. Like our trips last year, it was a trio, this time John Shannon, Don Davis and Dave Borszich, all with experience at this work.

This trip felt more like a routine maintenance trip, clearing out existing drains, including cutting briars and removing other obstacles in the runoffs, and incremental improvements of runoffs rather than restoration of drains full of material that had collected over a long time. Last year we found a gully in the trail after heavy rain. Eileen Seaman filled it, and Don Davis identified the cause; a year later, we saw that we were successful.

Just before noon, Lindsay Brown and Ken Moss joined the others after removing several blowdowns on Lindsay's section of AT south of Riprap Trail. They removed a log that obstructed one runoff on this AT section as well. We also saw overseer Connie Wright who had done some work, but left the heavy clearing for the group of younger people.

After lunch on a nice rock outcropping, fortified with pumpkin cake, the original trio kept heading north while Lindsay and Ken headed to family obligations. We went further along the trail than we have in previous trips, thanks to previous efforts which made the waterbars easier to clean. We made a couple of extra drains and short sections of regraded trail to improve drainage. Perhaps these new drains will need more work in the future, but it was a start.

John also noticed some bittersweet to cut or pull, which will probably not kill it, but will slow it down. When there are leaves, it will be easier to see the bittersweet, and damage it to stop tree strangulation.