A great group of campers/trail workers descended on beautiful Douthat State Park the first weekend in October to enjoy festivities and improve a remote section of the Great Eastern Trail (GET). The group included David Crowe, Mike Hammer, Barbara Martin, Donna Bossardt, Bill Holman, Jayne Mayne, Paul Henderson, Cat McCue, Gaby Navoa, Johanna Song, CJ Woodburn, and event organizers Iva Gillet and Jeff Monroe.
The group camped in adjoining sites on the edge of Douthat Lake. Our neighbors may not have liked us, but we had a blast!
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| Early morning view of campsites |
People started arriving on Friday - except for Mike, who had come on Thursday. Friday's excitement was another camper who was suffering from vertigo, and we had to summon a ranger who called an ambulance. We never saw that camper again, though his stuff was at the campground for the rest of our stay.
On Saturday, we drove over to Warm Springs Mountain, met up with Cat and her dog - a Saturday arrival. We then consolidated vehicles and made the long and bumpy drive on a Forest Service road to our trailhead. It was worth the effort, however, because our trail was overgrown almost to our vehicles.
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| A "before" photo of the trail. |
The group separated into two, equally important subgroups: (1) the workers cutting back the incredible amounts of overgrowth, and (2) the workers attacking larger downed trees. Below are a series of photos showing the progression of the sawyer group on one incredibly nasty blowdown. This was entirely done with hand saws - no power equipment used!
The brush group cut back on the overgrowth - this trail had likely not been touched in over 20 years - and uncovered a trail under all the growth! Of particular importance was the intersection of the South Piney Mountain Trail and the old Walnut Hollow Trail. The GET makes a hard left off of the ridge here, but the South Piney Mtn Trail keeps going straight. We cut back extensively at this intersection to make sure that hikers know which way the GET goes, while leaving the non-GET trail alone.
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Cat shows where the GET turns to the left. Behind Cat is the non-GET
portion of the South Piney Mtn Trail |
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| View from the trail east towards Jump Rock, which can be seen in the background. |
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Trail Workers and Bill's feet
We hope to return this Spring to hike this section of the trail. Finally, after two separate trips here, this trail section is now hikeable.
submitted by Jeff Monroe
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