Our first trail work day of the year and we had a great turn out. Sixteen BSTRA members along with DCR’s Cary VandenAkker.
With enough people we split into three groups. Group #1 (Chris DiMasi, Phil Rutledge, Kathy Rich, Bill Knott, Sue Sanders, Lynn Paresky, and Deb Carlson) headed over to Ricky’s trail and then split into two groups to start on each end with cutting and brushing back.
Group #2 (Laura & Arthur Susmann, Beth Phippard and Cary VandenAkker) headed over to Rocky Brook to work on installing the geo-textile material and pea stone on the two bridges there to make them non-slip and safe for all trail users. Actually Laura, Arthur and Beth had come down from New Hampshire not only to help out, but to learn how we were installing the geo-textile and pea stone on the bridges because they want to do the same for the park they ride in up in New Hampshire. How cool is that?
Group #3 (Becky Kalagher, Lee Paresky, Gloria Duhaime, Katherine Petersson, Rose Zariczny, and Cheryl Fitzpatrick) headed over to where the Grand Trunk comes out onto Wallum Lake Road. To cross, you had to go diagonally up the heavily traveled road on a blind corner before you could get to the other cart road. . Our goal was to create a crossing that was straight across the road. On a previous visit with Cary, he and I scoped it out and figured out where we could actually make the crossing.
Group #3 finished up that new connector pretty quickly and then headed off to our second mission. From Streeter Trail there is a short trail that connects down to the SNETT that was pretty grown in.
Lee put his brush cutter to work and was quite busy getting all the small brush. I was in front running my chainsaw and cutting back the myriad of small pine trees seriously crowding the trail. Side note here: I was cutting a small tree (3” diameter) that ended up falling towards me. As I went to push it the other way and turned guess what my chainsaw hit? First time in over 40 years of running a chainsaw. So is PPE worth it? You bet your sweet life it is.
While Group #3 was working on the connector trail (we really needed a better name for this trail) Group #1 (the bridge group) joined up to help us finish this section. This worked out really well. Cary came in from the SNETT end with his chainsaw, so just about the time I caught up with him, I ran out of gas! Perfect timing.
After a job well done, we all headed back to the headquarters building for lunch. Thank you Rose for calling it in and picking it up. It was pretty nice to sit out in the sun for our well deserved lunch. BSTRA paid $132.13 to make sure everyone was well fed and happy.
Including all the different sections, we cleared 1.1 miles of trail and improved the safety of two bridges for a total of 56 hours worth $1,845.76
