Trailwrights

Morning weather was not promising with low clouds and fog on the drive in. It turned out to be a perfect day for playing in the water. After meeting at the little bridge at Chocorua Lake a crew of 6 headed to the trail-head. Forest Service gave us permission to take a vehicle in behind the gate so the trailer was right at the work-site. We used the Clydesdale winch and the walk-e-dog winch ( a Chinese Griphoist copy). We used both winches a couple of times and additional cables,chains, and straps in multiple configurations but we were not able to use a high-line as initially proposed due to the size of the stones we chose and distances the rocks had to be moved. Five stones were moved into place to make the crossing easier for all. Workers were Dave Dick, Bob Spoerl, Bob Seston, Howard Mathews, Jean-Sebastien Roux, Bernie Calder and Tim Twitchell.

While the weather forecast did not sound promising a hearty band of workers showed up and accomplished the primary task for the day and more. 75 feet of ditch was realigned and hardened while at the same time leveling, widening, and smoothing the trail surface. One seasonal wet area was ditched to promote water to drain rather than pond. Another crew worked on encouraging water to drain through a stonewall to limit the ponding that occurs there and to allow for the soils to dry out. It looks like it will be a future bridge project as there is no opportunity to move the trail to a better location. In addition 4 new waterbars were installed and a handful of rocks were plucked from the trail surface. We were able to move a good sized rock using the Walk-E-Dog winch ( works and looks like a griphoist winch). We had just finished all that when it started to thunder and we got cooled off by a light rain. Pizza was provide at the Town Hall by the Project sponsors. Everyone agreed, a great day was had by all. Thanks to all that participated, it was an easy day for me. – Bob Spoerl