A Busy Week Ahead

Good Afternoon Fellow NCTr's:

We have a heavily-scheduled week ahead of us - hoping you can make it out for some or all of these:

Sunday, September 25th we'll be meeting in Darlington at 1:00 PM and plan to spend two or three hours paint blazing as much of the roadwalk between Rt. 51 and the Edwards Farm at I376 as we can. We'll gather at the Greersburg Academy that afternoon and plan out our attack on this ambitious project. Paint, brushes, stencils, etc. will be provided. You don't have to be the "Expert Painter" to contribute to this project so come on out on Sunday. Those telephone poles with blue blazes on them will definitely improve the hiking experience for those trying to work their way from Darlington Twp to the Wampum area. The forecast looks favorable and the Steelers don't play until that night - perfect!

On Tuesday, September 27 we're planning to leave from Jata's Diner in Wampum at 9:00 AM and going to the boat launch parking area on River Road to work on reblazing the road walk from the trailhead near there, under the Wampum bridge, and into town. We have several hikes on this stretch of trail planned over the next month or so and it'll be good to get it whipped into shape. We'll be out for two hours that morning. Again, painting and clearing supplies provided. Come earlier to Jata's for breakfast if you'd like.

THE BIG NEWS

It is on Thursday, the 29th that we are receiving our second trailwork gift of the year. Josh Nard, Program Director for the Student Conservation Association in Pittsburgh, is bringing a crew out to Beaver County for the day to help us with the Kirkwood Farm trail extension project. They'll be arriving at approximately 9:30 AM and we'll meet at the Hodgson Road trailhead (above Crawford's) to walk in and begin work. The project will involve grubbing, grading, and refining the pathway that we've flagged and then cleared with the mower. They'll be working from the point where the spring SCA crew (our first gift of the year) left off and working their way back towards Hodgson Road. I'd encourage you to come out and work with these young people, or at least make the trip out to thank them for their help. All of our past experiences with the SCA crews and their advisors have been extremely positive - the work they do is superb and their work ethic is excellent. We have put a lot of new, quality trail on the ground over the past three years thanks to SCA's help. Tools (AND LUNCH!) provided - bring drinking water and dress for the weather. Here's a map of the project http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=200253697770480530268.00048dac38585c56e767d&msa=0&ll=40.795391,-80.467343&spn=0.016017,0.0421

On Sunday morning, October 2nd, the Wampum Chapter will be leading a hike for Keystone Trails Association members at Cemex, from Sankey Hill Road down to the boat launch on River Rd. The KTA is having their Fall Weekend Event at Camp Lutherlyn, near Butler, and our hike is one of the activities on their program. If you'd like to help out with leading or walking sweep on this hike shoot me an email and I can let you know the "wheres" and "whens." Should be an excellent opportunity to show off one of our segments of the NCT to some out-of-town hikers.

Lastly, ("At last," you say) my thanks to Jake Erhardt and Lee Fairbanks for making the trip out to Mines and Meadows and Gamelands 148 (taunting the rain clouds) this morning. The trail through the ATV park is in good shape and showing no signs of abuse, and we were able to clean up the treadway and drainage channel near a culvert pipe out at 148. We also had the opportunity to bounce around a couple of trail name suggestions - like Dave "Camera Killer" Brewer, Jake "The Pack Mule" Erhardt, and I was thinking for Lee - "Rock Ferret". We'll work on these though. Couple of pics from today are here.

Thanks for all you do for the trail - hope to see you this week!

Dave Brewer
Trail Work Coordinator