Trail Work Tuesday Morning 4/26

Good Afternoon Fellow NCTr's:

The plan for this coming Tuesday morning is to go out to Cemex (Snake Run Road east) and work for a couple of hours to take out that old, dead tree that's leaning up against the lime kiln. Our certified sawyer, Bob Cody, says he's ready to get this job done, and with some teamwork (and ladder work, and rope work) we should be able to accomplish this easily. All help is appreciated - all experience levels welcome, because again, this is going to have to be a team effort. I have some extra PPE - helmets and safety glasses - but if you already have these please bring them along.

We'll leave from the front of Jata's restaurant in Wampum at 9:00 AM sharp and head on up to the trailhead from there. Come earlier for breakfast if you'd like.

Dave Brewer
330 531-1623

Changes To Spring Gobbler Hunting Season

Hi Hikers,
Please pass the word to your mailing lists that there are important changes to Spring Gobbler Season. Many are unaware of the seasons, let alone the changes. Thanks

SPRING GOBBLER SEASON Hikers, mountainbikers, birdwatchers and other outdoor recreationists should be aware that the Pennsylvania Game Commission has expanded the Spring Gobbler Season.


From April 30 to May 31 (except Sundays), there will be 232,000 Spring turkey hunters afield, who are expected to harvest about 41,000 bearded birds.
The state’s one-day youth spring gobbler season is Saturday,April 23, and will run from one-half hour before sunrise until noon. The general spring gobbler season is April 30-May 31, but there are new hunting hours.

The legal hunting hours from the opening day of the spring gobbler season through the third Saturday (April 30-May 14) will retain the current one-half hour before sunrise until noon timeframe. However, the remainder of the season (May 16-31) will be expanded to run all day, from one-half hour before sunrise until one-half hour after sunset.

The expanded hours during the last two weeks of the season are to lessen disturbance of nesting hens said Mary Jo Casalena, Game Commission wild turkey biologist. “By then, hunting pressure decreases and most hens are in their later stages of nest incubation, at which point they are less likely to abandon their nest if disturbed."


Note also that the Board extended the spring gobbler season through Tuesday, May 31. That does include Memorial Day. Turkey hunters are not required to wear blaze orange; hunters will be dressed in camouflage, calling in the gobblers from a static position. If you hear a turkey gobbling, assume that it is a hunter.

We suggest that you restrict your outdoor activities to areas where no hunting takes place so as to not interfere with legal hunting activities.

The PGC is proud of their safety record; let's help them keep it that way.

Dick
Richard A. Martin, Coordinator www.PaForestCoalition.org

Mission: Good Stewardship of our Public Lands
Caring for what God has created

Great American Cleanup - Many Thanks To All

Good Morning Fellow NCTr's:

As you can see from these photos we had a very successful Great American Cleanup of PA event yesterday morning and there are many people to thank for making it all come together. I'll start with the on-the-scene-crew from yesterday morning, who in a period of about two and a half hours managed to pull about 140 tires, a couch, a recliner, four or five televisions, and a pile of other trash out of the water and mud and got it ready for proper disposal. Thanks goes out to David Wright, Jim Houk, the McLaughlins - Tom and Adam, Jim Rarick, Lee and Eleanor Fairbanks, and Dennis Garrett for making the trip out and taking some Watt's Mill mud home with them.

You're aware that disposing of the tires presented a special financial challenge this year, and there was really no point in piling them up alongside the road unless we had a way and the means to dispose of them. The response to our appeal for financial support was tremendous, which allowed us to go forward with the project knowing that we had a resolution. A big thank you to Lori Macom, Julie Meier, Diane and Jack Manning, Dwight Fox, Tammy Veloski, Cody Magill, Boyd and Sharon Brewer, Joe Hardisky, Marsha Bennetti, Omie Svetlick of Sooper Dogs in Darlington, Precision Specialty Fastener of Cannellton, and Lora Woodward of Venture Outdoors. Venture Outdoors, I wanted to point out, gave us a $200 Site Improvement grant through their organization's donation program. Altogether we had $460 dollars pledged to tire disposal on this project!

Several of you have asked if we had enough money to take care of the tires we found down in the swamp. The answer is, "Yes, we think so." A thank you goes out to Donielle Andrus and Jerry Zona of Beaver and Lawrence Counties for the help they and their agencies gave us in finding a disposal solution at a cost we could work with. The cost we were given is $2 for a car tire, $3 for a tire on a rim, and $10 per tractor trailer tire. It looks like, tentatively, based on what we could figure out in the rain yesterday morning, that we have twenty-five truck tires and about 115 car tires with three or four of them on a rim. We'll have a total cost once we get them transported to the disposal facility in Bessemer. If we don't have the total amount in pledges we are certainly within a manageable figure on it.

I wanted to mention that PennDot, through the Great American Cleanup Program, supplied us with garbage bags and work gloves, and will be hauling away the trash from the site. They'll also be taking the garbage we picked up in Lawrence County last week. Thanks goes out to Kathy Guthrie of the Beaver County PennDot Office for her help. And Darlington Twp gave us safety equipment to use - safety cones, signing, and flags - so I felt "official" and none of us got run over yesterday morning. Much appreciated.

Lastly, I want to thank Lee Fairbanks and Dennis Garrett for all the work they put in on getting this together over the past ten days. They wore out shoe leather and the tires on their own vehicles, used up copier ink cartridges, burned up the phone lines, taxed their internet connections in sending emails, and talked to a BUNCH of people to get answers to questions and solutions to problems. Wouldn't have happened without their efforts.

Thanks again to everyone for your support and all that you do.

Dave Brewer
Trail Work Coordinator

Wampum Chapter 2011 Trail Work Plans

One of the positive aspects of being a volunteer with the North Country Trail Association is that there is job security – always something to do! Another positive is the chance to get out and have some fun with a bunch of like-minded folks, working towards accomplishing the feat of building, improving, and promoting a long-distance hiking trail for people to enjoy, both now and in the future.

With this in mind, and with my assurance to you that we don’t have any “trail professionals” in this group and we need everyone’s contribution, I’d like to invite you to come on out and participate in the activities associated with this year’s trail work season. We’ll need dirt diggers, bridge builders, and paint blazers for sure, but we also need photographers, bridge testers, bird call identifiers, and social event organizers. We also need help from trash picker uppers, day-dreamers, new trail-tread-walker-onners, story tellers, nature lovers, and . . . , and . . . , and . . . .

Our to-do list for 2011 involves many aspects of the trail experience - all the way from a big trail-building project, to doing some tread improvement and water management, to the job of brushing back and maintaining our current sections of trail so that they are clear and enjoyable for our hikers and backpackers. Here is a rundown of what we have in mind to accomplish:

• Construct a new mile of off-road trail eastward from PA Gamelands 285 onto the Kirkwood Farm. Then, figure out how to continue on to Darlington “off road.”

• Blue paint blaze all of our current road walk mileage (that’s about 15 miles worth).

• Repaint the blazes on the trail at Cemex.

• Deal with water issues on current trail sections by putting in or improving current bog bridges, constructing turnpike, or doing reroutes. We have projects planned at Gateway, Cemex, Gamelands 148 & 285, and at Watt’s Mill.

• There are a couple of short relocations we can build to enhance the trail experience at Gateway and Gamelands 285.

• We’ll do a trash clean up at Gamelands 285 and at the trailheads and roadwalks on the Cemex sections.

• Sidehill maintenance and benching improvements to do on all of the off-road sections.

• Continue installing hiker boxes, signing, and horse and ATV deterrents in various locations. We also need to replace several damaged Carsonite posts along the trail.

• Maintain our current eighteen miles of off-road treadway to a standard suitable for a National Scenic Trail.

As we’ve done over the past several years we’ll plan on getting out twice a week for a couple of hours each trip, one trailwork session in Lawrence County and the other in Beaver County. Come out when you can for the amount of time that you can – everyone’s contribution is valuable. Due to the variability of my work schedule we won’t be able to (unfortunately) plan a specific day each week, but I’ll try to get the word out in a timely manner.

Lastly, I’d like to remind everyone that the chapter has some sections of our off-road trail available for adoption. Adopters take on the responsibility to work their section at least three times a year, keeping it brushed back and clear, and in good hiking condition. An “adopter” can be an individual, a group - friends or family, or a formal organization like a scout troop or school group. The chapter owns tools to use in doing this job, and we have training resources available from the national organization. If you have questions about where and how please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Thanks for all you have done to support the North Country Trail in the past, and in advance, for all your support in the upcoming year. Hope to see you “on the trail” in 2011.

Dave Brewer Trail Work Coordinator

Adopt A Tire and Clean Up PA

ADOPT AN ABANDONED TIRE – MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN PENNSYLVANIA!

THE WAMPUM CHAPTER OF THE NORTH COUNTRY TRAIL ASSOCIATION NEEDS YOUR HELP IN CLEANING UP A SMALL CORNER OF THE STATE AT GAMELANDS 285 AND THE HISTORIC WATT’S MILL AREA.

OVER 100 ILLEGALLY DUMPED TIRES HAVE BEEN LOCATED ON SITE AND NEED TO BE DISPOSED OF PROPERLY AT THE COST OF $5 EACH.

WITH PENNDOT’S HELP WE’LL BE WORKING ON SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL 16TH FROM 9 A.M. TO 1 P.M. TO CLEAN UP THE ILLEGALLY DUMPED TRASH AND TIRES.

YOUR HELP – BOTH WITH THE COST OF ADOPTING THESE TIRES AND WITH THEIR DISPOSAL – IS NEEDED.

A COOKOUT LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS.

TO OFFER SUPPORT, AND FOR DIRECTIONS AND OTHER QUESTIONS PLEASE CONTACT US AT WAM@NORTHCOUNTRYTRAIL.ORG OR AT 330 531-1623.

Wampum Trailwork 4/7 and 4/9

Good Afternoon Fellow NCTr's:

I was wondering if you could hear it the whole way to Wampum. You know, the boom from when the garbage truck exploded up on Tony Dytko Road near the trail crossing. No, not really but it looks like there has been a lot of trash dumping going on up there, so I thought we should spend a couple of hours this Thursday morning, the 7th, doing some spring cleaning there and on River Road between the trailhead and the boat launch.

We'll leave from Jata's in Wampum at 9:00 AM on Thursday. I'll bring the garbage bags - bring gloves if you have them (I do have some extras) and flourescent orange or yellow for working along River Road. Come earlier to Jata's for breakfast if you'd like.

Saturday morning, the 9th, the plan is to stretch out our "diggin muscles" by doing some sidehill repair in a couple of areas at Gamelands 285, near the state line trailhead. There are several areas that can be improved with two hours of digging and shaping. We'll also take a look at the bog bridge and see what needs to be done to extend it another twenty feet.

We'll meet at 9:00 AM at the Rt. 251 trailhead and plan to be out a couple of hours. I'll bring the tools. Bring water to drink and dress for the weather. Come when you can and stay as long as you want as all help is appreciated.

I am trying to do a better job of using the tools that the NCTA has provided for getting the word out about what is going on. One of those neat tools is the calendar of events on their website, which you can reference here. The other PA chapters have been filling in their activities too, so if you want some notice of what is happening around the state (and the trail as a whole) you can reference this.

Hope to see you Thursday and/or Saturday morning on the trail. Thanks for all you do!

Dave Brewer
Trail Work Coordinator