Trailwrights

In keeping with the Trailwrights tradition of having a project to celebrate on this year’s NH Trails Day, we met at the Mt. Kinsman Trailhead to help one of our own Trailwrights on his adopted US Forest Service trail along with two hard working representatives of the Forest Service, Jen Burnett and Giff Kriebel.

After the usual safety and tool use discussion, we hiked to the first project just over and on the Forest where we met a 14″ Birch tree smack in the way of the first project, a wet area with seeps.  Chris dispatched that in hurry with a little help from Darrell.

Dave and his crew installed 100 linear feet of trailside drainage ditch to get the water moving into a newly installed waterbar that should handle the new flow.  They also installed rock steps and rock set stones in the treadway. As usual, they ran into a rather large rock that had to be moved for the water bar.  All this was followed with a covering of soil.

Meanwhile a little farther up the trail Gene, Giff, and a crew tackled a wet and very rocky 50-foot section with seeps.  Drainage was installed in two places to take the water to an existing water bar hopefully controlling the seeps.  They then placed some 15 smaller step stones to harden and then filled between with soil.

At the same time, Hal and Jen led a crew on another wet area digging another 75-foot trailside ditch with another ditch emptying into that one to drain the area.  Darrell with help from Hal and Glenn installed 4 step stones to harden and improved the water bar outlet at the start of this section and used a good deal of gravel and soil from the waterbar outlet to fill around the step stones.

Finishing up this section the crew, with Hal and Darell in charge, moved up hill to install a new rock water bar.

At the Bald Knob Spur trail jct., Bruce and Jeremy tackled a bog bridge that was in serious disrepair, removed the pieces, and started draining the immediate area in the hopes a new bridge would not be needed.  A natural spring and seeps caused the flooding and mud in this area.  The natural spring outflow was cluttered with a tangle of blowdowns, roots, and rocks that were then removed.  A 14 foot ditch was dug along the uphill side of the trail to the spring and then across the trail and approximately 16 feet into the outflow area.  Rock steps were placed to reinforce the sides of the ditch across the trail and also placed cobble stoning in the treadway.  Thus, the need for a bog bridge was eliminated.

In all there were 15 Trailwrights working 7 hours = 105 hrs, and two Forest Service workers for 5.5 hrs = 11hrs, for a total 116 hours. A really fun day with a lot accomplished. Thanks go out to all for the hard work but even better a good day protecting this particular resource. May there be many more days such as this one.

Seven hearty workers hit the trail to make some needed improvements. We decided to start at the farthest project for the day and work back. The first project was to decide what to do with this section of Boggy wet quagmire and corduroy.

We decided to move the treadway to higher and drier ground due to no drainage possibilities. It involved laying it out with flagging by Jason staying high and coming back to the road some 700 feet later. Problem one solved, as Gene finished up near the end of the improvement.

Next on the list was a section of trail still in the old skid road near a rock Culvert that had washed out due to lack of maintenance. The footing was loose rock and hard on the ankles. We filled one side in with small rock and covered the 25 lin. feet with gravel. Ditched the other side to get the water to enter the culvert.

Removed a 250 lb. rock with bars that was partially blocking the Culvert outlet. That took care of project #2. Side hilling to get the treadway out of another washed out area was on Jasons mind, so we tackled that next and Bill was caught working and Jason supervising.

Next was relocating the treadway again in a wet area moving the treadway side to side Installed 5 step stones to cross over and a few pavers and cleaning the ditch. More ditching is needed in the future.

Time and the heat started taking it’s toll and we were happy with what we accomplished for the day. Bugs were not a problem except for Gene so all in all a fun day. Next time you hike this trail check out the work. Now for the future. Many projects need doing and lot’s of rock work to be installed higher up above the Mousely Brook crossing including and one more really wet area above the Mousely Brook crossing that needs step stones or a turnpike. Hopefully we can get some more help for the September 15th. work day. Totals for the day 7 people x 7 = 49 hours. And all tools accounted for. My thanks for all the fun to the entire crew.