Sunday May 2 Trail Work - More About Stones!

The plan for this Sunday afternoon's trail work session - May 2nd - is to work on setting the foundation stones for the backpacker shelter at Watt's Mill. Lee reports that he has the shelter location set and the corners staked out. So to (partially) quote Dennis, "... if you want to roll the stones around, we'll be there."

Actually, if stone rolling isn't your thing, we do still need to plant a couple of Carsonite sign posts and repair some sidehill a short distance up in the gamelands. And if neither of those tasks is your thing either, just come on out and enjoy the setting and comaradarie alongside the North Fork of Little Beaver Creek. It's a beautiful spot.

We'll meet at 4:00 Sunday afternoon at the Watt's Mill Road trailhead and plan to spend a couple of hours on the trail. Bring water and a snack if you prefer - we've got the tools and the stones.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108657039929755040265.0004498a6086c175b4998&z=13

Hope to see you Sunday afternoon!

Sticks and Stones

The weather was beautiful and we had a productive morning at PA Gamelands 285 and Watt's Mill yesterday. Lee Fairbanks, Dennis Garrett, Bob Cody, and I started off by installing a North Country Trail sign built by Bob at the Sterling Road trailhead. Bob is a master craftsman and a wizard with the router - the sign looks great! The digging was easy and with teamwork we had it in the ground in no time at all.

Which gave us an opportunity to drive over to Watt's Mill and select, dig out, and transport some cut-sandstone blocks that we're going to use as foundation stones for the backpacking shelter to be built there. Again, with teamwork (and a rickety Chevy S10), in no time at all we had six very heavy stones transported to within fifty yards or so of the site and a no-pain plan to take them the rest of the way in on Sunday evening (barring a rain delay).

Some photos here: http://community.webshots.com/album/577334854UNgKrW?start=12

Hope to see you at 4:00 Sunday afternoon!

Tuesday Mornings In Wampum!

Hello Folks,

I want to first apologize for any confusion I may have caused regarding what day we usually work in the Wampum area. I've been dealing with a couple minor, but at times aggravating, health issues and I didn't know for sure if trail work would agree with me this year. Dave Brewer was able to lead the crew last Thursday and I made the trip out to do some spring cleaning of the trail along River Rd. I think I'll be able to do it this year as long as I behave myself (diet wise) and I thank Dave for stepping up and covering for me.

Tuesday mornings have always worked well for us in the past so I can't see any reason to change. We have a short section of tread leveling I'd like to tackle on the section of trail between River and Tony Dytko roads. We eased into a bit of it Thursday and found the digging to be fairly easy. We should be able to complete it in one session. Fixing this area will make mowing much easier.

Speaking of mowing, I got the DR mower ready to go for the season this afternoon. I changed the oil and filter and sharpened the blade. The mower had plenty of battery power after sitting all winter so hopefully we won't have any maintenance nightmares like last year.

We'll meet the same time as previous years. Leave Jata's Diner in Wampum at 9 AM sharp, come earlier for breakfast if you wish. We'll access the trail from Tony Dytko Rd this week to eliminate alot of walking to the site. I found a short cut a few years ago that most of you aren't aware of. For that reason if you don't leave from Jata's you can meet us on River Rd at the Cemex loading silo (large concrete structure with conveyor over the road). Be advised Dytko Rd. is not in the best of shape but passable.

Hope to see you on the Trail

Bob Cody

News From the West - Ohio That Is

This is an email update from Keith Brown of the Great Sandy Beaver Canal Chapter, NCTA who are our neighbors directly to the west:


Hi everyone:

At the Chapter meeting Sat. April 10 it was decided schedule a workday the 3rd Sat. of each month . The 3rd Sat of
April is this coming Sat. April 17.

Therefore I will meet anyone interested in working next Sat. at 9:00 in the morning at the Beaver Creek State Park Camp Ground on Leslie Rd. We will be flagging a trail relocation in the park and doing more trail maintenance. Tools will be furnished. Bring water and lunch.

To get there from SR7 turn onto Carlisle Rd. going east and then right onto Leslie Rd. The campground is on the left at the top of the hill.

Keith Brown

Minutes of the Great Sandy Beaver Chapter of the NCTA

In attendance were Keith Brown, Brad Bosley, Peter Zelinka, Ken Jones, Andrew Bashaw, NCTA Regional Trail Coordinator OH/PA and Dave Brewer, co-work leader of the Wampum Chapter, PA

The meeting was a breakfast meeting held at the Taste of Country Restaurant north of Lisbon Ohio Sat. April 10 at 9:00 am.
Keith Brown reported that the new trail constructed last year from Beaver Creek State to SR7 is in jeopardy. Tod L., the son who will inherit the property just west of the Park says he wants no part of the trail. In the future we need to be certain that all members and stake holder in the property are party to any agreement we make. Keith will try get a meeting with current parent owners to see if the trail can be salvaged.

The following actions were taken

1. To extend the trail for which the Great Sandy Beaver Chapter is responsible all the way from the PA line to where it joins the Buckeye Trail.

2. Brad Bosley reported that we need to find storage space for tools other than in his garage. Keith is to check with Beaver Creek State Park officials to see if they can provide storage space for our tools.

3. Keith reported that we need to maintain existing trail as well as build new trail. Thus we need to assign members to maintain existing trail. Jenny Simpson and Ron Gorman have expressed interest in maintaining trail in the park and Peter Selnick also expressed interest.

4. Brad Bosley agreed to present a plan to the Lawyer for the Vodrey property fr their approval. he feels fairly confident they will agree. If this can be accomplished we could construct trail from the nature preserve to SR 170.

5. Keith will continue contacting property owners fro Beaver Creek State Park to Lusk Lock.

6. Keith will also confer with Park officals about flagging a trail relocation On the Upper Vondergreen Trail from Gretchen,s Lock to the top of the hill.

7. Keith will also be in contact with Bob Fonte to see what progress Stark County has made in acquiring property for hiking and bicycle tail tin the Magnolia, Waynesburg, Malvern area.


Respectfully submitted, Keith Brown

PS. The last two Saturdays work parties succeeded in clearing the entire NCT through Beaver Creek State Park. Although the trail still needs work it is easily hikable as of now.

Monday I conferred with Tod at the Park Office. He feels they will be able to work out storage for our tools. He also likes the idea of relocating the NCT from Gretchens Lock to the top of the hill. The horses can then have that rocky mess that now exists for themselves. He thinks as we plan new trail locations we should involve the horse people in the planing so they will take ownership of the horse trails as we take ownership for the NCT trail through the Park

2010 Trailwork Kickoff Week

It's a great week to kick off the 2010 trail work season and we have a couple of different excursions on the schedule. Remember, come when you can and stay as long as you want - all help is appreciated. We have no professionals on this team and we all figure it out and work together. Details on this weeks sessions below:

Thursday morning, April 15 - We'll work in the Wampum area at Cemex, the River Road trailhead specifically, from 9:00 to 11:00 AM. There are a couple of blowdowns to deal with, along with our annual redressing of the sidehill in this area. There is also some rebenching that needs to be done a short distance above the railroad tracks. If you'd like to join us we'll meet at Jata's Restaurant at 8:00 for breakfast, leave from The Store in Wampum at 9:00 sharp, and drive to the trailhead. We'll be out for a couple of hours.

Friday evening, April 16 - Heading to the state line at PA Gamelands 285 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM to be able to check off a few different items on our "to do" list. We'll change the mileage marker (thank you Bob Cody for the new marker) on the NCT sign there, put up a hiker "registration" box, and put in forty feet of bog bridge through the swamp about 100 yards from the trailhead. We'll meet at the trailhead on Rt. 251 (Blackhawk Rd.) at 4:00. **Equipment note - if anyone has a battery powered sawzall they can bring out I'd appreciate it. Or maybe some dynamite would be useful in removing the old mileage marker from the sign - Ron Rice builds 'em tough.

Hope to see you Thursday morning in Wampum and/or Friday evening at PA Gamelands 285.

NCTAWampum@yahoo.com

2010 Trail Work Plans

It seems that spring came on fast this year in western Pennsylvania and we're ready to get out on our section of the North Country Trail and get to work. Your co trail work coordinators Bob Cody and Dave Brewer have been out doing scouting work and utilizing information from those trips, and also gathering input from other Wampum Chapter members and hikers, have come up with a general list of things we'd like to accomplish in 2010. These projects range from the "large and challenging" to the more mundane year-to-year issues that we have to address.

Here is a partial list of what we'd like to get done:

• Build a backpacking shelter at Watt's Mill utilizing the NCTA Field Grant funds allocated to us.


• Add another quarter mile of new trail at PA Gamelands 285 to reach the Indian Rock area. We'll be adding a sixteen-foot bridge, about twenty feet of bog bridge, possibly another sixteen footer and definitely doing a lot of benching to work our way off of the hill at the far end.


• Do a three-hundred-yard reroute near the PA/OH state line to move the trail off of a game commission double track and place it along a ridge line in the woods.


• Find a way to deal with a tree that has fallen against the lime kiln on Cemex property.


• Add sixty feet of bog bridge in various locations to get up out of the perenially wet areas that aren't suitable for a reroute.


• Update some areas with signing as Bob has built a new sign to put in at Sterling Road and new Carsonite posts and signing have been received from the NPS.


• Add hiker "registration" boxes at various locations to use for user-informatin gathering, and as a communication and recruiting tool for the chapter.


• Put ramps on several of our existing bridges at Cemex to accomodate the passage of the DR mower.


• Address issues of unauthorized ATV and horse access in the known trouble spots.


• Fix a rock staircase (or reroute around it) that has fallen into disrepair at Cemex near Snake Run Road.

We can also add to this list areas of sidehill that we know could use some redressing (as in our "annual trip to River Road"), paint blazing that needs redone, and clearing deadfalls from the past winter (and the ones sure to come down this summer) and pruning and clipping away new trail-blocking growth.

Our list is long and it looks to be challenging. But the thing to remember about trail work is that it should be trail FUN. It's about getting out and doing something enjoyable and sharing the company of some like-minded friends, being in the woods, remembering that "every little bit helps", and "the work you do is worth at least twice as much as you're getting paid to do it" -concepts expressed to me by an old Mid State Trail maintainer I was talking to when I first started out on this. With these in mind I'd say we need some dirt diggers and bridge builders to come out with us for sure, but we also need brush pruners, walking-on-new-trail-tread checker outers, photographers, blaze painters, cloud watchers, bird-call and animal-track identifiers, walking-across-new-bridge testers, and new-story tellers.

We'll plan to get out twice a week for a couple of hours each day this year - one day in the Wampum area and the other in Beaver County. Based on work schedules and personal obligations we're going to end up working on different days of the week this season but we'll try to let you know a week or so in advance of what the plan is via email, the PA North Country Trail Facebook page, or in a couple of instances that we know about, by phone call. All are invited - bring a friend along and introduce them to us and the trail.

Hope to see you on the North Country Trail in 2010!

Tons of previous trail work pictures starting here http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/562015494uiidEO?start=12

And here http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/570844996cwpsLj