On April 22nd, we held our 25th annual trail work day. Hard to believe that much time has gone by already. We had 10 people coordinated by Ranger Viola Bramel, ACE (Army Corps of Engineers) to clean out water bars, brush back, and clear winter debris. New England Mountain Bike Association (NEMBA) was also there working on the trails. Due to some various issues, the Woodland Trail is no longer a loop. The trails going out to Mendon Road have now been reconfigured. The trail on both sides of the West River will now loop back to the trail that you came out on. NEMBA has been working on establishing these new loops and putting up signage.
This is usually a fairly easy trail work day but not quite so much this year. There were a lot of small trees that were leaning over the trails, so they all had to come down. The hand saws were the tool of choice for that job. We split into two groups to work on either side of the West River. I hear that Rose’s granddaughter, Leah (8 years old), cut down 7 trees! Viola made sure she had kid size gloves and showed her the proper way to use the hand saw and away she went. Very impressive!
Our dynamic trail work crew for the day was Sue Perry, Barbara McCumber, Valerie Clark, Karen Parlin, Steve Lawrence, Gloria Duhaime, Rose and Leah Zariczny, Linda Lestha (ACE), Viola Bramel, and me. Thank you all for your volunteer efforts. A total of 41.5 hours of trail work computes to $1,293.55.
A special thanks to our trail work day sponsor, J.F. Cove Insurance Agency. After tools were put away, some of us gathered at a local pizza shop to have a well-deserved lunch.