NCT Weekend Wrap Up

Good Evening Fellow NCTr's:

For those of you keeping score, you can mark another item on the Wampum Chapter's "to do" list for this trailwork season as DONE as Tom Scardina, Doug Turner, and Lee and Eleanor Fairbanks headed out with me today and finished up the 200 yard relo of the trail near the state line at GL285. It is grubbed, pruned, and blazed - ready to hike - and a darn nice little piece of trail (if I say so myself). Appreciate that crew coming out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to get that done. Some pics from today's session are here (starting on the second line) http://picasaweb.google.com/105725471641034380528/WampumChapter2010TrailWork#

Besides the way we worked together to get that knocked out, the other enjoyable part of the day was the number of hikers we encountered. As we got going on our project a man and his dog, followed a short time later by a couple of young girls hiked on past, back down to the trailhead to their vehicle. Then, a bit later on, as we were working along the hilltop, we thought we heard voices on the trail down below us. Eventually a family of five, including three young boys, walked on up the trail and we had a chance to talk with them. They were looking for the "Indian Rock" as described in the Beaver County Times article so we directed them six miles eastward. Later on, after we finished up our trailwork session and I headed down to the shelter to check on its status, I encountered another family, this time of four, hiking back down to Watt's Mill to their vehicle. They had walked about a mile up the trail to the two large rocks the trail goes past and had also visited the shelter area. Beaver County Times article again. Pretty good traffic day for the North Country Trail!

Speaking of LARGE ROCKS - I had the opportunity to go to Cook's Forest on Saturday to work with the NCTA/KTA trail crew. I was proud to see Wampum well-represented, with Doug Turner and Tim and Ceci Ramsey also making the trip. They had a great turnout for their service weekend and it was nice to meet up with and have the opportunity to work with some people I was already acquainted with, and also to meet some trailwork newcomers - one a kayaker from Canonsburg, another a backpacker who had travelled from Philadelphia, and some BOC members from my old stomping grounds of Saxonburg and Sarver -amongst many others.

In fact, they had enough crew on hand on Saturday to tackle three seperate projects, one involving putting in well over a hundred yards of log and gravel turnpike in a very wet area north of the park, another crew working on fixing some trail on the eastern end of the fire tower hill, and the third crew (which I was with) worked on upgrading the North Country Trail on the hillside below the fire tower and above the Clarion River. We repaired sidehill, pruned back overgrowth, took out rocks and root trippers, and (here is where the BIG ROCK tie in comes into play) built a couple of stone staircases under the direction of Paul Henry and Tim Ramsey. Those guys are rockwork pros (or maniacs, I can't decide which yet) and they planned (and dug) out some great staircases. The hikers that were walking on through on Saturday expressed their appreciation for all of the hard work.

I took some photos of the crew and work done on Saturday and they can be found here http://picasaweb.google.com/105725471641034380528/KTATrailwork11610# and Tammy Veloski also sent me a link to the pictures that she took, which are here http://butleroutdoorclubphotojournal.shutterfly.com/1347 I must be getting the "photographers eye" 'cause I took some of the same ones she did, just not as well.

Thanks for all you do for the trail - hope to see you Tuesday morning in Wampum or out at the haunted house.

Dave Brewer