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Trail Maintenance and Volunteering

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  • I've written before on this subject. It's something we all should squeeze a weekend in once a year. Not only because the trail needs it, but you need it to. It is just an awesome thing to actually be part of the trail besides just using it. We all know the feeling when we've participated in a job well done. Last year Overload and I walked alot in Mass, so we joined a work party up there. This year I've been on the NY/NJ trail 3 times and plan to wrap it up, so when LI hiker put the RPH thread up, Overload and I packed the Fish car and headed down.....but first OV made 2 cheesecakes. I just love the look on a hiker when they discover a fresh brownie cheesecake is for dessert that nite.
    So Saturday morning I headed off with the stair building crew and Overload stayed at the shelter and did jobs around it. They dug and put up a trail kiosk, weeded the perrennial garden, painted the porch. I moved boulders. I was put with a team from the NY/NJ trail Conference Technical building crew. Chris, the boss, Erik,crew chief/builder, and Bob, who will be forever be called Bob-O-mattuck! He was the guy who would use the pick/hoe tool ( a Mattuck)on the front of the boulder to guide it as the other 3 of us would muscle it forward with long steel bars. Chris would have said boulder on a sling on-belay and watch the process as we moved it. There were bodies pounding big rocks into little rocks, folks hauling those stones and crushed gravel. But I found a home with the technical crew, and on Sunday after it was all done they invited me to join them. They have cool t-shirts 8o . I fit right in with them, I understood what was going on and they liked my work ethic............I work like a bull! :D . They work many trails in the NY/NJ trail system and I am looking forward to being part of these projects.......And I'll get to wear a hard hat!
    The RPH folks were great, for three days they fed us. At night we all set our chairs around the BS circle with beers, wine, cigars and cheesecake....it was indeed 'All good. I can't wait to come southbound from Pawling some day, with a full pack, and test the rise of those 18 steps. And Overload got to pass out her own cheesecake! :thumbsup:
    Cheesecake> Ramen :thumbsup:

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