Storm Clean up

December 1, 2018December 1, 2018 / jim fetig / 10 Comments

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South District, Shenandoah National Park, Appalachian Trail, November 30, 2018 — The east coast got smacked with an early season snow storm a little more than a week ago. The Washington area escaped major impact, but it hammered the south district of Shenandoah between Stanardsville and Waynesboro, VA. and cities to our north.

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Photo courtesy Shenandoah National Park

Heavy snow and high winds crushed the softer trees leaving hundreds of them blocking Skyline Dr., the road that runs 105 miles from one end of the park to the other. The park trail crews report that the downed trees resembled a military abitis that runs for miles along the road. Abitis definition at this link.

Leave it to the park crews to painstakingly clear the road quarter mile at a time. Each tree must be bucked and chipped. That’s a slow process.

Meanwhile, enough of Skyline, from Swift Run Gap south, had been cleared to permit the PATC to begin clearing the AT. The supervisor of trails in coordination with the south district manager called for sawyers and swampers.

Sawyers are club members certified by the National Park Service to safely operate a chainsaw. Swampers help the sawyers by removing slash and trunk rounds from the trail. The plan was to attack the afflicted area from both ends.

As the supervisor of trails reported yesterday: “We met at Swift Run Gap at 8:30am today and had 22 PATC members ready to work. Ten were certified chain saw operators including six District Managers.

We were limited as to parking shuttle cars because of the clearing of Skyline Drive and this constrained the amount of trail we could cover. The AT is clear from Swift Run Gap to Simmons Gap a distance of nine miles.

There is another group working from Rockfish Gap north and I don’t have any information on their progress right now. The main problem appears to be further south toward Rockfish Gap where the blow downs are quite severe.

Skyline Drive is not open for other than emergency travel and the clearing is very slow. The park maintenance crews and back country trail staff are responsible for that clearing. We will schedule another work trip later this week.”

Sawyers are distinguished by their red Kevlar chaps.

We divided into crews. My crew consisted of three sawyers and three swampers. We worked northward from Powell Gap to Smith-Roach Gap – about a mile and one-third. Other crews worked elsewhere.

The swampers were all experienced trail overseers and knew how to get after the work at hand. They brought their pruning saws, loppers and other trail tools which allowed them cleared several blowdowns by themselves.

With one exception, our blowdowns were smaller trees snapped or bent over across the trail. These are tedious to clear, our three two-person sawyer/swamper teams worked quickly and efficiently.

This is one blowdown we tackled with two sawyers, one on each side. Hidden within these tangles are branches loaded with weight called spring poles. They can whip around hard enough to cause serious injury when their energy is released. Sawyers are trained to find them, but they are hard to read in tangles like this. Each sawyer reported being surprised by more than one, including me.

All told, our crew removed 27 blowdowns in just over one mile.

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Sawyer PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) consists of leather boots, Kevlar chaps, leather gloves, helmet, face shield, and ear muffs.

Stay tuned for follow on trips. We’ll be at this for awhile.

Sisu

Black Friday = Green Friday

November 24, 2018January 31, 2019 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

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Shenandoah National Park, Black Friday, November 23, 2018 — Everybody needs a ginormous boob tube to watch foooball and swill cheap beer, right? When’s the best time to score one? Black Friday, of course.

Everybody who needs more stuff, raise your hand. Mall warriors betting they won’t lose yardage tackling a foreign-made discount TV at the local running of the fools, please do the same.

Guess what? There are alternatives. Turn off your phone. Go outside. Volunteer. Make a change. Be productive. That’s what two of my friends and I did and what a day we had.

The curtain rose on a leaden sky, accompanied by a biting wind. We linked up at the Jenkins Gap trailhead parking at a leisurely 9:30 to avoid suffering Washington’s mad dog, crack-of-dawn, Black Friday shopping traffic.

Bright sunbeams were piercing the cloud deck like metaphorical knitting needles as we pulled our gear out of our SUVs. The day ended in warming sunshine.

KellyPhilJim

There were three of us. Kelly, me and her husband Phil. We were armed with a shovel, a McLoed fire hoe, and a pick-mattox respectively.

The plan, march 2.3 miles to the top of Compton Peak and work our way back to the cars. In between we’d clear waterbars (drains) of debris, improve those needing work, replace at least one, and clear blown-down trees and branches blocking the trail.

The first order of business was to test the frozen ground to see if we could actually dig. If we not, plan B was to take a long hike.

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Ice formed a crust about an inch thick. It was easily cracked by our tools.

Some waterbars needed only to have the leaves raked out. Others, like this one, had silted up and needed extensive rebuilding.

My resident bear sow ripped this waterbar apart discarding the rotting log off to the right. The park’s policy is be more environmentally gentle and avoid, where possible, using wood and rock in building trail structures. This swale, sometimes called a “grade dip” replaced the log. Grade dips actually require less long-term maintenance, so what’s not to like?

Keeping track.

We also cleared the path of several large branches knocked down by a recent storm. After three hours, we were done, with enough time remaining to take a little stroll.

We drove one car south to the Hogback overlook trailhead, leaving one at Jenkins to which we could return.

What we’d hoped would be a pleasant walk turned into another three-hour maintenance trip. In all, we found 10 trees blocking the trail. We removed three with the small folding saw we had, trimmed a couple like this one making it easier for hikers to pass. The rest we reported.

We finished up having turned Black Friday into a green one; also knowing the overseer for this section would soon be in need of elbow grease aplenty.

Happy Green Friday!

Sisu

Widowmakers

November 9, 2018November 11, 2018 / jim fetig / 5 Comments

Would you camp under this tree?

The Appalachian Trail, November 9, 2018 — It’s been a hellova year. Shenandoah National Park normally receives 55 inches of annual rainfall. To date the park has measured 85 inches with seven weeks remaining in the year. That’s 30 inches above normal so far.

That’s not the only weather pattern that’s off. We usually enjoy magnificent indian summers here in the mid-Atlantic region. This year it stayed hot and muggy right up to the bitter end. In less than a week, the temperatures turned raw with cold winds and a freeze warning in the immediate forecast. Oh, not to mention that it’s still raining.

If traffic on Facebook is any judge, the AT thru-hiker class of 2019 is hard at work getting ready to go. These intrepid hikers are buying gear, planning hard, and doing as many training hikes as possible.

For those who will be planning trips from now until their start day, there are a lot of things to think about. Here’s one more.

Campsite selection is pretty much straight forward. The first thing to know is the rules of the jurisdiction you’re in. You should know that some places have strict rules on camping while others do not.

I manage the ridgerunner program for 240 miles of the AT in the mid-Atlantic region. That’s four states and five different sets of rules for camping.

For example, Shenandoah National Park allows dispersed camping with a few reasonable limitations. In contrast Maryland requires everyone to camp at official campsites with no dispersed camping allowed whatsoever. Maryland rules do not allow fires except in designated fire pits. The rules for the area you’re in will usually be posted on the trailhead kiosks or your guidebook, map or app; if in doubt check the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s web site at http://www.appalachiantrail.org/camping.

Using already existing campsites helps reduce environmental impact. Look for tent sites with good drainage and that are sheltered from wind and heavy weather if that applies.

Standing dead trees.

Here’s the ‘one more thing.’ Check overhead for widowmakers. They are sometimes called fool killers and are anything that has the potential to injure or kill someone below. In a more specific sense, they are dead or weakened branches caught precariously high in trees, ready to fall on unsuspecting individuals underneath.

These hazards are not trivial.

In August 2018 a hiker was hit by a falling branch while hiking on the AT just north of US route 50. A 15 – 18 inch waterlogged tree limb snapped and fell to the ground without warning. It struck and killed the hiker instantly.

Not that far away, a tree near Maryland’s Ed Garvey Shelter fell, fatally striking a hiker as he was heading for the Trail one fateful morning in March 2015.

It’s not always easy to spot hazard branches, but it’s always worth the look. Most importantly, it’s not worth the risk camping or hanging out under or too close to such a risk.

The brown substances at the base of the black opening is rotted tree material.

Healthy-looking crown of the same tree. This is a tree of concern.

Stump of a rotting tree preemptively felled at the Annapolis Rock caretaker site.

Trees that might fall are another potential risk. They may be dead or diseased. Sometimes it doesn’t matter. If the ground is highly saturated; high winds can push trees over because the roots can’t hold in waterlogged soils. This year’s heavy rains saturated soil and fallen trees increased the number of down trees maintainers had to remove from the trail. After a March storm, 700 blowdowns were removed from the 102 miles of AT in Shenandoah National Park alone.

Healthy trees rooted in rain-saturated soil, blown down by light winds.

Removing a hazard tree near Bears Den hostel.

Storm damage.

Tree trunk split in ice storm LPotteiger(1)

Storm damage.

Don’t assume that, because you’re in a preexisting campsite or in the area of a shelter, there is no danger. Maintainers, rangers and forest biologists watch for trees of concern, but they can’t find them all.

Nuff said.

Trees of concern aren’t a huge risk, but it always pays to be prudent and add them to your checklist when you’re in the backcountry.

A version of this blog was originally published by the author on the Appalachian Trail Expert Advice Facebook page.

Sisu

Ten Glorious Days

October 13, 2018October 17, 2018 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

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Hiking and Working on the Appalachian Trail and Shenandoah National Park, October 4 – 10, 2018 — Being busy beats boredom more often than not. It’s the same when work is pleasure and pleasure is work.

Hike across Maryland hikers resting at the Ed Garvey shelter.

Road Scholars offers several hikes in our region. The one in which we are normally involved is hiking legs of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in four states – Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia – in that order. We have one more of these on schedule for this season.

The other offering is four days hiking the AT across Maryland’s 42 miles. This is a gentle hike compared to rest of the AT with most of the miles spent running a ridgeline on an old logging road converted to trail.

We were asked to fill in for leaders who could not make it. Good weather graced our participation and the hikers marched into Harpers Ferry in good spirits.

The next day, my friend and colleague Mary Thurman, currently Blackburn Trail Center caretaker, offered to help with some trail maintenance on the AT in Shenandoah National Park.

On a grossly muggy day, we weeded a couple of miles worth of trail on two sections in the North District and removed seven blowdowns, two by handsaw; the rest with a chainsaw.

The long sleeves, gloves, face shield, and buff are to protect from poison ivy which is atomized by the string trimmer. You can feel the spray as you go.

Soon Mary will be headed for her next gig at the Grand Canyon. I’m going to miss her. This spring my wife and I are going to celebrate my 70th birthday in Colorado with my siblings and cousins. Mary and I plan to hike the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim on the way.

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Twelve hours later. Here we go again. Time for the White House Hiking Group’s planned hike up Old Rag, Shenandoah’s most popular hike – so popular that it was on Thomas Jefferson’s bucket list back in his day.

We rendezvoused literally at Zero-dark-thirty in order to get a jump on the crowds. On a rare dry day in a rain soaked summer, you just knew people were gonna come, and they did.

Dawn cracked with an unexpected overcast. Since you hike Old Rag for the views we prepared for disappointment. Imagine our delight, popping out of the gloomy clouds into happy sunshine.

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Obligatory horsing around photos.

We made it!

Brick oven pizza and a brew in nearby Sperryville capped the day.

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No rest for the wicked. Tuesday and Wednesday brought the Road Scholars again, this time hiking the AT in four states.

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This bunch was unique – a running group from Grand Rapids, MI. They’ve been together for decades and were a hoot!

Meanwhile Sophie endured surgery to remove a cancerous cyst. The bounce is returning to her step and the prognosis is good.

Not until the heavy exercise was over, did the weather turn toward autumn. The humidity and temps are mercifully down just in time for the Hoodlums trail crew next weekend. See you there.

Sisu

Hilton Hotels Community Service Project

September 29, 2018September 29, 2018 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

Harpers Ferry, WV. September 28, 2018 — Many corporations have programs which allow employees to perform community service on company time. Younger employees especially like this idea. For them it’s a habit. They’ve been performing community service since they were young students.

Allowing employees to do good in the company name offers excellent brand recognition while employees get to enhance morale, build camaraderie, and recharge their batteries.

Yesterday, as a representative of the PATC Trail Patrol, I led a group from the Hilton Hotel corporate headquarters on the portion of the Appalachian Trail that is co-located on the historic C&O Canal tow path. Though they didn’t know it before starting, the volunteers would visit three national parks that day – C&O Canal, the Appalachian Trail and Harpers Ferry National Park.

In ninety short minutes, these volunteers collected approximately 40 gallons of refuse from either side of the tow path and from the canal itself.

Another group covered the six miles on the AT between Gathland State Park and Weverton Cliff parking.

Thank you@hiltonhotels.

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Thanks also to my friend Mary Thurman, caretaker at the Blackburn Trail Center. Mary acted as the sweep, ensuring that the entire group arrived together.

Sisu

Windstorm Cleanup

March 13, 2018March 27, 2018 / jim fetig / 9 Comments

Shenandoah National Park, Sunday March 11, 2018 — About ten days ago a nor’easter ripped through the mid-Atlantic on its way to hammer New England. Large trees were snapped and uprooted like toothpicks, dragging down power lines as they crashed to earth. Widespread power outrages bloomed in the winter storm’s aftermath.

Our own electricity in the big city burbs was out for four days thanks to a big old tree that landed in the wrong place.

Soon word spread of massive blowdowns all along the Appalachian Trail, especially in Shenandoah National Park. What’s a dedicated trail maintainer gonna do except saddle up and ride toward the sound of cracking tree trunks?

This tree snapped near its base, and in the process, blocked a four-way trail junction. Bucking this 20-inch tree was an interesting puzzle requiring careful attention to safety and a step-by-step approach.

fullsizeoutput_154b Step one was trimming away the smaller branches and reducing the blowdown to its bare structure.

Step two is getting the main trunk on the ground where it’s safer to chop it up.

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Step three is reduce the main trunk. Here, with a top bind, after an initial cut about eight inches deep, wedges are driven to keep the cerf from closing and trapping the saw in the cut.

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Wedges in, the job can be finished.

Step four is get the slash off the trail and out of the way. Best of all, we converted a lot of chainsaw gas into sawdust.

Job. Done.

All told, we cut six blowdowns on the section I maintain. The subject tree was on the southern end.

After that, we moved to the Indian Run fire road which is the access to the Hoodlum’s maintenance hut.

We quickly picked off three minor blockages on the fire road.

Of course there’s always “that one.” This 12-incher was draped in vines and it was hollow making it a bit more sketchy to cut.

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The approach was to trim away the vines and branches before dicing up the trunk from the top down.

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Like dicing vegetables for roasting.

Sliced into small enough chunks to drag off the trail.

Ten obstructive trees were gone. Then we found this. This tree is a good 20 inches alone. It has a twin right behind it. That’s a twofer. It’s also a “leaner.” The angle isn’t bad, but this multi-ton tree’s top is hung up requiring care to safely bring it to justice.

The day was getting late. Fatigue proved the better part of valor and a safety rule red light, so we left the remaining trees for the Hoodlums to tackle on Saturday.

Sisu

Rigging Workshop

September 25, 2017September 26, 2017 / jim fetig / 5 Comments

PATC Rigging Workshop, Sharpsburg, MD, September 24, 2017 — When you have to drag big rocks or logs, or bridge a creek, how ya gonna git ‘er done? That’s what we learned this weekend at the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club rigging workshop for trail maintainers.

Rigging is mature technology. It’s used every day in construction and factory settings. Sailors know it well. The same principles that lift tons of concrete 25 stories in building construction or off-load container ships are the same ones trail maintainers depend upon to safely move 1,000 lb. rocks and ginormous logs, rootballs and bridge stringers.

That bridge across the creek? Guess what? Riggers used high school physics to calculate the “working load limits,” “sling tension,” “share of load,” “choke angles,” and many more factors required to safely drag, lift and place large objects in the right position deep in the back country where lumber sexual street cranes fear to tread.

The first four hours were spent in the dreaded classroom drinking from a fire hose pumping out basic concepts, safety rules, vocabulary, equipment familiarization, calculations, and expectations for the weekend.

Flashback to Vietnam era military training, “If you don’t learn this, you will die in Vietnam,” the sergeants would extol with the subtlety of jackhammers.

Well students listen up, a snapped steel cable or rope pretty much functions like a weed wacker except with enough power in the right circumstances to maim, decapitate or de-limb your ignorant butt. The consequences for carelessness or ignorance range from disability up to and including death!

After fully appreciating the weed wacker metaphor, I thought, “Why do I want to learn this stuff?”

“So you stay in one piece,” my guardian angel’s voice intoned.

“Oh!” I replied.

I noodled for second. My guardian angel takes responsibility almost nothing so I knew with the motivation of a lonely guy at closing time that I was on my own.

With that ugly metaphor in mind, my eyes and ears locked in on doom prevention for the remainder of the weekend.

Another take-away from the workshop. The price of my toys continues to escalate. This little sucker is a grip hoi$t. This model can move a ton although there are larger and heavier models that can handle much more. Want to win a tug of war? Get one of these babies!

Properly attached to the anchor and ready to go.

But there’s more to it than a grip hoist. Ya got your pulleys, shackles, chains, ropes and the know-how to properly hook them up. Time for a second mortgage if you want to buy the toys. Otherwise you use PATC equipment.

First practical exercise, rigging and dragging a BFR weighing an estimated 750 – 800 lbs.

Checking everything twice.

Have rock. Will travel.

Added a pulley to change direction with the speed of molasses. Slow and steady is good in this business. The rock bars help keep the front end from becoming a dozer.

View from the grip hoist operator

Slow lane.

Summary day one:

A lot to learn. Most of the info delivered by fire hose spilled on the classroom floor. I am going to practice this skill in small bites and learn to get the math benchmarked and develop valid rules of thumb. You can lighten the load you have to carry into the backcountry if you closely calculate. Me? Until I learn a lot more, I’m going to over engineer everything and eat the weight.

Day two. Highlining.

In the density of the predawn darkness I’m awakened to the purr of a golf cart somewhere between the door of our 10-bunk cabin and the awesome laminated-beam pavilion across the gravel. Our kindly hosts at the Shepherd’s Spring (Church of the Brethren) outdoor retreat center were delivering hot coffee for the second morning in a row. You rock ladies!

I’m cocooned in an Army poncho liner (quilt) with ear phones jammed into my ears, half listening to old time radio’s “Boston Blackie” and dreaming of special times and places.

The wake up cue nudged me from dreams to reality. You see, I normally respond to the gentle rhythms of dawn and dusk. I wanted to stay but … the crunch of the coffee wagon on the gravel was overwhelming as a bone is to a dog.

“Add coffee, instant human.” The pending chemical assist was an awesome incentive to get the jump on the day ahead. My feet hit the floor in a dead sprint for the Thermos. I was not alone. A nutritious breakfast in the dining room followed.

The words ‘high line’ connote a cable strung high in the air with a suspended load dangling below. Fake news! Not true. Do that and you might die in the woods grasshopper.

Instead, a high line suspends the load no higher above the ground than necessary. (Physics nerds and engineers know this.) A taunt line under high tension decreases your working load limit, and that dear friends confers zero advantage. The more U-shapped the parabola, the better.

Rigging the high line. High means way up in a live, solid tree with a choke configuration and a pulley. That’s the spar. It’s anchored to another tree directly to the rear. Hiking in the ladder has to be a joy.

Rigging a chain basket to carry the BFR. This one’s about 500 lbs. Like Santa, checking it twice.

Setting the grip hoist at a 90 degree angle with enough distance to pull the amount of cable necessary.

Inserting a dynamometer allowed us to see the actual forces at work.

Click for more on dynamometers

Ready to rock and roll.

Ready. Steady. Go.

BFR on the move.

Exercise over.

Please do not try this at home. This blog is not a ‘how to’ for anything. It is a story about our rigging workshop this weekend. We hope it helps you understand more about what it takes to keep hiking trails in good working order and how dedicated volunteers give of their time to advance their skills.

Of note. Many women have taken this workshop and are actively involved in PATC rigging projects. Ladies you are welcome. Please come.

Sisu

Broken Pick

September 18, 2017September 18, 2017 / jim fetig / 1 Comment

Why we can’t have nice toys. Jim breaks them all. Truth is that if you pound on rocks long enough, something like this is bound to happen. It’s not my superhuman strength though. These pick-mattocks are cast, not forged, and we found crystalline metal at the joint where the tool broke. Manufacturer’s defect.

Trail Maintenance Workshop, Shenandoah National Park, September 15 – 17, 2017 — Each September the North District Hoodlums trail crew sponsors a maintenance workshop where up to 30 enthusiasts can come to work with the National Park Service to learn or improve their trail maintenance skills. This was the 30th anniversary of this popular event.

The group divides into work parties – those new to trail work and those more advanced. The projects tackled are agreed upon between the park service and relevant Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) district managers.

An early arrival on Friday made time for me to inspect the section of the AT which I maintain as the overseer. I met a backcountry ranger on patrol at the trailhead so we hiked up Compton Peak together. My pruning saw easily dispatched some tree branches we found blocking the trail. There were no additional anomalies other than the spring is nearly dry.

Checking for bears is my favorite part of fall. This time of year bears have entered hyperphasia, a metabolic condition that drives them to pack on the extra pounds they need to survive winter. These obsessive eating machines can devour 20,000 calories per day.

Black bears are omnivores. The mast (bear food) consists mostly of nuts – acorns, hickory and walnuts in the park, plus insects they find in rotting wood, berries, cherries and apples that come from residual orchards originally planted by those who farmed the land before it became a park. If they find a animal carcass, they’ll scarf up that too. We spotted five bears while working Sunday morning.

Here a bear brought some apples from the nearby orchard and dropped them next to some rotting logs that offered more calories in the form of grubs and other insects. Note one apple is half eaten. The scat pile is perhaps the largest I’ve seen in the area – about three times the volume of a large dog. Note the absence of seeds in the scat which is unusual. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

When the inspection was finished, I headed for Mathew’s Arm campground where the workshop encamped. Folks had begun to gather and it didn’t take long for beer and a fire to improve the ambiance.

On Friday through Saturday lunch we are responsible for our own meals. This is steak a la foil, with potatoes, carrots, garlic and red onions, slowly baked in the coals. The scrumptious Saturday dinner, Sunday breakfast and lunch are catered (prepared on site) by two brothers whose other brother is a Hoodlum. This was their 13th year as I recall.

The first order of business Saturday morning is the safety briefing followed by work party assignments and discussion. Those new to trail work begin with an introduction to the tools maintainers use and the purpose of each followed by a day-and-a-half’s worth of hands-on application. They clip, prune and weed vegetation, clean and repair erosion control structures, and even build a few. The work parties headed out to north Marshall, Little Hogback, Dickey Ridge and Overall Run.

We worked with a couple of NPS crew members to remove and replace some rusted culverts on the lower Dickey Ridge trail near the park entrance station. We also cleaned and rehabbed some waterbars in the area.

Lunch.

Nearly done.

Finished product.

On Sunday our work party cleaned and rebuilt waterbars and check dams on the Overall Run/Tuscarora trail.

Turning in tools at the maintenance yard near Piney River.

Corn snake on the hunt for bats that live in the rafters. Who said snakes stay on the ground? They can climb trees and stone walls, not to mention chimney up this space.

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The 30th year for an event like this is auspicious. The experience and the companionship were delightful. Most importantly, much needed work got done.

If you are so inclined next year, watch for the announcement in the PATC newsletter. Be early, the roster is limited to 30 and fills up fast.

Sisu

Walking the Line

November 13, 2016November 13, 2016 / jim fetig / 4 Comments

Appalachian Trail in Northern Virginia, November 9 -12, 2016 — While it is self evident that the Appalachian Trail itself requires frequent maintenance. After all, an estimated three million hikers tread on some part of it annually. That’s a lot of wear and tear.

What few hikers may realize is that the trail itself is one thing. The land through which it flows is another. That land can be federal, state, or local. In some cases it belongs to private conservation groups or other entities. All of those land parcels have borders, borders that are surveyed and marked. They must be checked from time to time to ensure the markers are still there and no encroachment or other illegal activity is underway.

Checking the AT corridor boundary is what I’ve been doing in northern Virginia for the past several days. I was on a corridor monitoring trip organized by the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA). Over time 30 some folks dove in, some for the whole time; others for a day or two. Together we were able to check and remark several miles of boundary.

The boundary has no trail. Crews edge their way along the border, bushwhacking through thickets and briars.

Sometimes monitors have to get down into the weeds to find the survey monuments.

Once a monument is found, it is recorded and the brush is lopped away.

Witness trees get refreshed.

The boundary is marked in mustard yellow. The paint, from bottles, is squeezed on brushes toothpaste style. Bottles are refreshed daily.

Sometimes monuments can only be found using the surveyor’s measurements.

Brush trimming is not as fun as it appears to be. 🙂

The threats to trail lands and by extension to hikers are real. People dump trash, extend their fences, or hunt illegally on these lands.

Who knows what led to this tragic scene.

One thing for certain. The former residents were unhappy with the government as other graffiti attested.

Later we decided to bushwhack our way to the AT for an easier hike out. I found an illegal trail built by a hunter the previous year as noted in this blog post about my hike with ridgerunner Hal Evans. Vegetable Territory The hunter had put up an illegal deer stand which was supposed to have been removed. Of special interest, it faced the hiking trail which was less than 100 yards away. This was an intolerable situation regardless of other circumstances.

Note the odd-colored green paint the hunter used to blaze his trail. The bottom part of the ladder was removed. Standard procedure.

Our intrepid crew cut the bicycle lock with bolt cutters and carried out the offending tree stand. Some disassembly was required before it would fit into the ATC’s van for disposal. The Appalachian Trail is a national park and a note and business card from the park’s chief ranger was substituted on the tree to account for the missing stand. In a sign of the times, monitors were concerned that face recognition software might identify them to a revengeful hunter, so faces are not visible.

The ATC crew has a van donated by Toyota.

We stayed at the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club’s Blackburn Trail Center. It features three bunk rooms and a large commercial kitchen. It is rentable for group events and weddings. Otherwise it is used by trail crews, ridgerunners and others working on the trail.

Accommodations are rustic. The plumbing is outside.

Blackburn features a hiker cabin, tent pads and a covered eating area.

Unfortunately the solar shower wasn’t working this late into autumn.

Gorgeous stone work at Blackburn.

Sisu

Personal Recognition

November 1, 2016 / jim fetig / 5 Comments

Standing near the old apple orchard. The saw is for cutting logs used to construct waterbars and check dams. The red pants are Kevlar chainsaw chaps.

Recently the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) honored me as the volunteer of the month. As personally gratifying as that is, it is important to remember that I am but one of thousands of people in the trail community working hard to protect and preserve this national treasure and all the other trails and parks.

Some of these wonderful people are trail angels who help out individual hikers, others perform a limitless range of activities then help keep the trail alive.

Last year alone volunteers contributed more than a quarter million hours of maintenance on the Appalachian Trail. Even that is not enough. If you love your parks, please contribute as much time, talent and/or treasure as you can. Above all, enjoy your hikes.

Jim Fetig – Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, Appalachian Trail Conservancy

Jim Fetig is a man with a mission—to do everything he can to protect and preserve the Appalachian Trail.

Jim began volunteering with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) in 2012, in part to prepare for a thru-hike, which he accomplished in 2014.

Besides overseeing a Trail section in Shenandoah National Park and working with PATC’s Hoodlums trail crew, he coordinates the club’s ridgerunner program, serves as public affairs chair, and helps with fundraising. He also volunteers at the ATC visitor center in Harpers Ferry and does presentations and workshops on various aspects of hiking.

According to ATC Information Services Manager Laurie Potteiger, Jim is a powerhouse. “Few volunteers are involved with the A.T. from such a variety of perspectives,” she says. “You might find him using a chainsaw to clear blowdowns on his Trail section, swinging a pick on a trail crew, greeting visitors at ATC HQ, supervising ridgerunners anywhere along PATC’s 240 miles of the A.T., or writing blog posts that promote new initiatives that benefit the Trail.”

Last year, Jim helped pioneer the Trail Ambassador program, working as a volunteer ridgerunner with the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club to greet and encourage hikers heading north from Springer Mountain. That section is heavily used, particularly in March and April, not only by prospective A.T. thru-hikers, but by even larger numbers of students on spring breaks and other groups.

As many as 150 of those hikers per day may want to stay at the same overnight site. They are often ill-prepared—many of them on their first backpacking trip. Besides educating hikers on Leave No Trace principles, backcountry sanitation, protecting food from wildlife, and much more, Trail Ambassadors also perform minor trail work and pack out trash. Jim found it very rewarding, particularly motivating hikers and giving them confidence in what they can accomplish. He has received notes from hikers who have completed A.T. thru-hikes thanking him for his encouragement and advice that helped them accomplish their goal.

Jim’s work on the Trail makes him appreciate the complexities of managing it, describing it is a system with many parts that all need to work together. Volunteers are one of those parts, and he says there is a role for everyone. “Whether giving back or paying forward, the volunteer experience is an intrinsic reward in and of itself. Whatever you do, it will be deeply appreciated by everyone concerned including your fellow volunteers.”

Information on contacting Trail maintaining clubs and ATC volunteer opportunities can be found at www.appalachiantrail.org/volunteer.

http://www.appalachiantrail.org/home/volunteer/volunteer-recognition/volunteer-biography-full-page/october-2016—jim-fetig

A fork in the road

Yogi said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." So I'm following the white blazes.

Appalachian Trail Maintenance

Storm Clean up

Black Friday = Green Friday

Widowmakers

Ten Glorious Days

Hilton Hotels Community Service Project

Windstorm Cleanup

Rigging Workshop

Broken Pick

Walking the Line

Personal Recognition