I love PEOPLE!

April 19, 2022April 19, 2022 / jim fetig / 8 Comments

You think we were tired!

The AT and My House, April 12 – 17, 2022 — It’s been people time recently – lots of interesting people and even more fun.

The week opened with a visit from a German public radio producer, her lovely children, and her colleague.

It ended with a day spent with Caroline and her dad.

In between the Hoodlums April work trip brought out 31 people, a record for this time of year.

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The time of year is important. The weather went from sunshine Sunday to snow on Monday. Weather this time of year is a crap shoot. We got lucky. It’s going to be in the high 60s again later this week. Go figure…

Susi Weichselbaumer and her children were lovely. We haven’t had little kids in the house since we bought it. Fortunately we found some of our daughter Liisa’s old Duplo Lego toys. Susi works for Bayerisher Rundfunk, Bavarian Public Radio in Munich. She and her kids travel the world having adventures for the radio. The name of their program (radioReisen) translates to Radio Travels. What a gig! Mom, you’re amazing!!!

Susi contacted the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club in search of an AT adventure. As we corresponded, I thought it might be fun to host them, get to know them and fit the hike to the family.

I invited them over and pitched a tent in the yard. The girls packed one of my packs with two schlaufsacks and had a short camp out after which we made SMORES around the fire pit. If stickiness is any measure, they were happy.

Susi’s colleague Arthur gave the crosscut a go. The girls sawed off a couple of pieces as souvenirs.

A couple of days later we trekked up to Annapolis Rock for a picnic. Adventure complete.

Meanwhile, my wife and a bunch of Lashley Lounge/Gang of Four friends popped in to see the newly renovated Mormon Temple which towers over our neighborhood. It will be open to the public for a short time before its rededication. Secrets inside? We won’t tell.

That was the week. Now for the weekend.

Dawn cracked on the Hoodlums meet-up with a breeze that chomped at us with a seasonal reminder. We were delighted to see some pre-COVID stalwarts return to the fold.

This group broke into work parties that cleared blowdowns on several north district hiking trails. Another group continued tread work on North Marshall.

Sporting my new prescription Z 87+ prescription but dorky safety glasses, I led a group of seven down a side trail called Jeremy’s Run. That’s creek to most folks. It’s in a designated wilderness so only muscle powered tools are allowed.

It was like a war story.

There we were. Armed with my grandfather’s crosscut, a bow saw and a couple of Silky Big Boy 2000 folding saws. Yes that’s a Japanese brand of professional pruning saw, not a Harry Potter Quiddich broom. We launched what the military calls a movement to contact.

Movement to contact: Cross the line of departure into the backcountry. Search for the enemy. Find the enemy. Maneuver and destroy the enemy.

What’s the enemy? The enemy is blowdowns. Here’s our after action report:

We made contact almost immediately after entering the backcountry. This little one must have been an enemy scout. We needed to demonstrate practice and teamwork. Rachael dispatched it without fanfare.

Must be getting closer to the main body. We unlimbered the big saw. With the team taking turns, Jim Grant’s crosscut dispatched this enemy outpost posthaste.

I wish my grandfather could see and hear this. This saw was the best you could buy at the time. I hope he would be proud that it’s still productive.

The secret to success it taking turns. That way nobody gets tired. This crew had a seven limber arms in the bullpen. We used all of them.

Missed you Sam Keener. Sam is the only Hoodlum with a good excuse. She was running the Boston Marathon. BTW, she smoked it.

We didn’t always use the heavy artillery. The lighter silky saws did their share. Slo mo on the replay.

Ana clears an obstacle!

The outer defenses are defeated.

Lunch prior to the main objective. These are grad students from the Johns Hopkins school of public health taking a needed break from thesis season.

Happiness is…

All told, we made four stream crossings and hiked down to the fifth. The water is about 12 inches deep. Don’t fall in.

The wedges keep the kerf open so that it doesn’t close and pinch the saw.

The objective. In total, we defeated nine blowdowns.

Clearing the battlefield.

Victory party at the Elk Wallow picnic area. First in two years. You go Hoodlums!

R&R at the Hoodlum’s home base, the Indian Run Maintenance Hut.

This is better than the sunrise at Campobello. Eat your heart out Teddy. That’s my morning coffee on the reflector fire wall.

A little drama in the morning breeze as Steve’s tent decided to take itself for a walk.

Turn the page to Sunday. Marching in, we found a benchmark for the original AT which was moved away from Skyline Drive a long time ago. It’s amazing what you can find without the summer vegetation choking the view.

Let’s switch gears from trail crew to the AT section that Caroline Egli and I maintain.

If you recall, last month we cut logs to replace rotting drainage structures.

We were joined by Caroline’s father. The first thing we did was camouflage an illegal campsite by spreading dead fall and leaves over the bare spot.

We replaced rotted logs.

Sometimes twenty-somethings vent a little. It’s about a couple of good guys who downplayed how tough busting rocks was for the North Marshall crew with whom Caroline worked the day before. You tell ’em lady!

She said she was strong! She drove the pick clean through the log.

Good time had by all! That’s why I love this life and these people.

Sisu

From George’s House to the Daughter of the Stars

October 27, 2019October 27, 2019 / jim fetig / 5 Comments

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Mount Vernon, VA; Harpers Ferry, WV; Shenandoah National Park, VA, October 24 – 26, 2019. — This was a good week. It opened with a quick trip to Annapolis Rock in a drippy drizzle and closed with similarly soggy weather in Shenandoah.

In between the sunshine was brilliant when we came knocking at George’s house. Mt. Vernon hasn’t seen my shadow since 1985. What a difference 34 years make.

Last visit, there were a small number of tourists, much of the house was undergoing restoration and few outbuildings that had been reconstructed. Other than a mention, there was next to nothing about slavery or the other people and infrastructure that made the plantation economically successful.

This visit, we found a huge visitor center, plenty of docents, museum and hoards of tourists and herds of school kids on field trips. The house is looking good too.

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Mary Thurman occasionally visits and we explore the region. She’s a member of the Cherokee nation, so last summer we visited the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian. This visit we had a choice of Mt. Vernon or the Spy Museum. Our choice was a good one.

The spits, hooks and other kitchen paraphernalia reminded me of torture tools that might be found in a medieval dungeon. The audio tour was excellent and downloadable for future use.

Fall Colors in Harpers Ferry. The church is antebellum as is every building in the photo.

The next day Mary returned to her ridgerunning duties while myself and two other PATC volunteers led 20 Northern Virginia Community College students on a hike to the Maryland Heights viewpoint.

Great idea: The college parks a bus in front of its student center on Fridays. Nobody knows where it’s going until they board. This day the destination was a rendezvous with us at John Brown’s fort. The fort is in its third reconstruction and location.

This photo was taken from the fort’s original location which was elevated for a railroad bed (no longer used) after the civil war. The foundations of two buildings that were once part of the pre-civil war federal armory are visible.

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Not sure why people feel free to vandalize national parks, in this case the fort which was originally a fire house.

Perfect time to visit Harpers Ferry.

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Maryland Heights was crowded in addition to our students.

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The view is worth the effort.

Maryland Heights.

Stephanie is using a professional model electric chainsaw. It’s power and longevity was impressive as was its light weight. Dear Santa …

In the predawn murk I slammed down a coffee and hightailed it to Shenandoah for chainsaw sawyer recertification – required every third year. Chairsaws are no joke and the park service pays attention to safety.

The information on which certified sawyers are tested is at this link: Sawyer Handbook

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After passing the test, my intent was to refresh the white blazes on my trail section. Several of them are peeling. Unfortunately Mother Nature and her liquid sunshine suggested other ideas. So I simply took a stroll looking for work that will need doing in November after the leaves are down.

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The spring is barely flowing.

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The tread is in good shape.

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Nature’s art.

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Northern Red Oak.

Another view of the overlook. Shenandoah to the left. Potomac in the town foreground.

Next week: Final Road Scholar hikes of the year and the end of Mary’s ridgerunning season. Stay tuned for the blog.

Sisu

Annual Trail Maintainers Workshop

September 24, 2019 / jim fetig

Some tools of the trade.

Shenandoah National Park, October 18 – 20, 2019 — If you want to learn how to dig holes in the dirt, who ya gonna call? The Hoodlums, that’s who.

Each September the North District Hoodlums trail crew hosts a workshop for trail maintainers, beginners through experts. Last weekend we did it again. For me it was number seven.

The canopy is for the kitchen where Dave Nebut’s brothers prepare our scrumptious meals.

The format is simple. The content gets adjusted periodically. It goes like this. The official start time is 0900 Saturday morning. The safety talk is followed by work party assignments commensurate with each person’s experience level.

On Saturday we generally work until around four o’clock when we return to clean up. Dinner is a six followed by a campfire.

Sunday is a repeat with coffee and breakfast at 7 a.m. We close at noon for lunch and cleanup.

A few of us usually arrive early on Friday to help with set up, gathering of tools, hauling firewood, and the like. The early birds also get the most level tent sites!

A full campground on a clear Friday night doesn’t always go the way you plan. Some group partied until 3:30 a.m. I was shocked the campground host didn’t intervene. Moreover, the city slicker dogs just had to announce each bear that wondered through in hopes some ignorant knucklehead left out food. Between bears and loud drunken laughter, nobody got much sleep.

Saturday dawned like the shiny jewel of a day it was. The park trail crew arrived to work with the advanced group.

Phone addicts everywhere. Mine gets NO Service in this spot, a blessing.

Dave and I led some fine folks on an encore trip near the junction of the Thompson Hollow and Tuscarora Trails to finish the work we abandoned last month when one of our work party members suffered from heat exhaustion. The day was warm, but not that warm. It’s officially designated wilderness, so traditional tools only may be used.

In total we removed seven blowdowns.

Some of the blowdowns were high while others were low.

Using a hatchet to chop away the rot. On a log spanning a gap, gravity draws the wood downward causing compression (bind) at the top. Once the cut gets deep enough, the resulting bind will slowly make it harder to saw.

We use wedges to hold open the “kerf” so the sawing can continue.

We also built some drainage dips where waterbars were needed to prevent erosion.

The dirt was proof of a hard day’s work, so let’s get the party started.

Good news. Just as darkness blanketed the park, our odds changed. We learned that 30 percent chance of rain sometimes means you get wet. Why good news? The rain doused the campfires and the partying. Silence reigned even as dark rain poured from the inky sky. Everyone got a good night’s sleep. Amen!

Sunday was another beauty contest winner made extra special by the hot coffee.

We split into three groups. Rebecca Unruh, backcountry ranger and dear friend of the Hoodlums, gave a talk on environmental hazards from poison ivy to heat stroke.

We also offered sessions on string trimmer use and maintenance, and on grade dip construction.

We called it at noon for a delicious lunch.

A sign of happiness.

Boots usually last 500 miles or about a year for me. These are two-year-old miracle boots. The rain last year was easy on the soles. The rocks finally got the uppers.

Straining for a selfie.

Until next year.

Sisu

FKT Attempt: A Champion’s Story

August 6, 2019September 9, 2020 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

Witt flying through Beagle Gap. Note the stove I used to make coffee.

Shenandoah National Park, August 5, 2019 — “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt

Witt Wisebram is an Appalachian Trail Ridgerunner from Atlanta, GA. His resume includes the hiking triple crown – the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail.

Witt holds or has held the FKTs (Fastest Known Times) for the Arizona Trail, the AT’s 100-mile wilderness in Maine, and the AT’s Four-state Challenge.

You can look up and learn more about FKTs here: FKT website

Yesterday Witt attempted to earn the record for the FKT on the AT in Shenandoah National Park.

The course is 103.2 miles on the Appalachian Trail beginning at 2,220 feet in altitude at the south entry kiosk, rising to 3,837 ft. at Big Meadows, and ending at 2,334 ft. at the north boundary. The elevation profile looks like saw teeth whose bite can sap a runner’s strength like a crosscut sunders logs.

Sunday night prep.

While the planning began for this “supported” attempt began weeks ago. It got serious Sunday night when Witt and his support team positioned themselves in Waynesboro, VA to launch a zero-dark-thirty assault.

Final checks.

Overnight rain meant slick trail, at least until the sun burned it off. Lingering clouds delayed the BMNT (Beginning of Morning Nautical Twilight) start by nearly 20 minutes. Five thirty a.m. was launch time.

While Witt burned up the trail, the support team set up to wait. The tote contains calorie-dense foods, spare clothing, blister treatment, and spare gear. A cooler in the car chilled water.

After set up, we’d wait until the man himself dashed into view.

Water bottles exchanged. Snacks delivered.

Potassium-rich bananas help prevent muscle cramps.

It’s always handy to have a physics professor friend document your record attempt. The sheet marked mileage, aid stops, miles in between, expected pacing, actual time, and any variance. Sabine even made a column for bears seen (6).

Witt was on or ahead of pace even after the sun burned off the friendly cloud cover. Here he is crossing the Skyline Drive bridge at Swift Run Gap at the the boundary between the park’s southern and central districts.

Waiting quietly for Witt had its pleasures.

The aid stops were plotted where we could get easy access to the AT, generally 3-5 miles apart.

Reginald the snapping turtle was our mascot. Sabine’s life-long friend, an astronomer from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, happened to be in town and joined us later in the day.

Leave No Trace principles apply, especially when the athlete and his support crew are ridgerunners. Witt exchanged is old wrappers for new snacks at each stop.

As the day wore on, the mountains and the sun took their toll. Mother nature is not sympathetic.

As nightfall approached, we could tell Witt’s tank was emptying. He had stumbled just prior to this stop and tweaked a muscle in his upper back. His pace had been slowing since mid-afternoon. When he sat down at this stop I knew his run was in grave danger.

We discussed ending the attempt. Witt was concerned that continuing might but him in position for a long painful recovery.

We quickly planned another stop 1.5 miles up the trail at the Timber Hollow Overlook on Skyline Dr. where a final decision could be made. Sabine joined Witt for safety and support.

The thousand-yard stare tells the end of the story.

For safety’s sake and Witt’s health, he made the decision to stop his attempt, just short of the 70-mile mark. Elapsed time: 15 hours, 21 minutes and 48 seconds.

Witt made a brave and intelligent decision. This was his first defeat. I hope it’s not his last. Adversity helps us learn and grow. It offers perspective and coaches empathy.

Note I did not say failure. While the outcome on this day was not what Witt expected, he performed like the champion he is and will continue to be, only After this he’ll be a little bit better.

Sisu

Busy Week on the Trails

July 27, 2019July 27, 2019 / jim fetig / 6 Comments

Tiny toad next to a blue blaze.

Shenandoah National Park, Antietam National Battlefield and C&O Canal National Historic Park, Maryland, July 20, 23 and 26, 2019 — The week started with the Hoodlums trail crew work trip Saturday in stifling heat and humidity.

We cleared the leaner with a 24 inch pruning saw. The chainsaw vapor locked.

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Monday the heat broke and I dashed up to the park to weed the AT section I maintain.

The warning sign is about a rabid ground hog that has been spotted in the area. Of course I immediately imagined that our local bear would find and eat the dead ground hog, then we’d have a rabid bear on our hands … Nooooooo! With that I put my imagination back in its box and got to work.

Tuesday featured a Maryland AT Management Committee meeting where the various organization involved with the AT in Maryland convene to sort out issues and coordinate activities.

Traffic is always horrific coming out of Washington so I usually leave early and meet the ridgerunner for dinner. Then we attend the meeting.

Dunkard Church taken from near this vista. It is one of the iconic photos from the battle.

I had 90 minutes before the time I arranged to meet Mary, so I dropped in on Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, MD. Link to Antietam Battlefield website

When I was a student at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, we spent some time studying this battle to learn what we could from the decisions its various leaders made on that bloodiest day in American military history.

“23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after twelve hours of savage combat on September 17, 1862. The Battle of Antietam ended the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia’s first invasion into the North and led Abraham Lincoln to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation,” according to the website.

After falling into disrepair, the church was rebuilt for the civil war centennial.

Inside of the church as it is today.

The Dunkard faith tradition is alive today. Link to the Dunkard Brethern website.

Now for the highlight of the week. It’s time for another Gang of Four (again minus one) hike. Alexis was booked as an analyst on NPR’s 1-A Friday domestic news round up.

Three sunny faces at 8 o’clock.

We were back at the C&O Canal’s great falls. There are many trails in the park, but the Billy Goat trails are the best. Last time we hiked Billy Goat B because A was flood damaged. Yesterday A was open and we were ready. Link to our last visit.

Billy Goat A is similar to B. It’s located on the Potomac floodplain and features rocks and sand.

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The C&O offers excellent aquatic habitat.

Butterflies were abundant. This is Viceroy, not a Monarch.

Rock monkeys atop the featured rock scramble.

Selfie!

For the record.

Balance beam yoga.

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Readers may recall last year. Area rainfall for the year was nearly double normal. The river roared through Great Falls as if wasn’t even there.

What a difference a year with normal rainfall makes!

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With that, we called it a day and repaired to a local watering hole for an al fresco lunch. We had to sit outside. I forgot to bring a dry shirt. Stay tuned for our August adventure.

Sisu

No rest for the wicked

May 19, 2019February 22, 2020 / jim fetig / 10 Comments

Everywhere, May 2019 — No time for a deep breath. May is just like that. The list is long.

In all, I flew to my brother’s in Loveland, CO and belatedly celebrated a milestone birthday (50 + shipping and handling), led a Road Scholar hike, attended ridgerunner training, and worked with the Hoodlums trail crew in Shenandoah National Park.

Walking around the lake at my brother Jack’s. Rocky Mountain National Park (Long’s Peak) is on the horizon.

Next comes two orientation hikes (OJT), our neighborhood homeowners’ association meeting (with several contentious issues), an appointment with the Social Security Administration (it’s that time: 50 + shipping and handling), and a pre-op physical because I’m having two more Dupeytren’s fingers surgically straightened on the last day of the month.

Oh, my friend Karma, who hiked he AT in 2013 and the Pacific Crest Trail last year, is hiking the AT again. I’m hoping to meet her on the trail in Shenandoah when I weedwhack my trail just before surgery, but for sure we’re having lunch in Harpers Ferry just like we did in 2013.

Karma was was not only an inspiration for my hike the following year, but in practical terms, she was the person whose wisdom and practicality was worth its weight in gold when I was preparing for my AT thru hike. Her blog for that hike is the the best AT blog ever, IMHO. Click here: Karma’s 2013 AT blog

May has been and is going to be a blur.

Robert, the 2018 northern Virginia ridgerunner, briefs Witt, the incoming. Witt is a tripple crowner having hiked the At, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. He also holds the FKT (Fastest Known Time) for the Arizona Trail. That’s a bunch of hiking.

Joanne, will be patrolling in Shenandoah again this year for 30 days beginning June 15.

Wilderness First Aid – It also was my year to re-certify. It’s an excellent course. Sixteen hours drinking from a fire hose and splinting the hell out of them and so much more. If you’re ever injured on a trail, you want a WFA to find you. Click here: Wilderness Medicine

Caffeine addict alert.

Hoodlums work trip.

Does it get better than this? I don’t think so!

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.

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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

PBS Travels with Darley

May 27, 2018 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

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Shenandoah National Park, Hawksbill Mountain, May 24, 2018 — My friend Karen Lutz is the mid-Atlantic regional director for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. As such, she’s forgotten more about the Appalachian Trail than most people will ever know. That’s why she was asked to appear on “Travels with Darley,” a travel program that airs nationally on Public Television.

Karen is a bona fide expert. Her resume opens with a 1978 thru hike, especially prominent because so few women thru hiked 40 years ago.

Karen’s original hiking boots are enshrined in the Park’s Big Meadow visitor center museum. We paid respects at this shrine to (grave of) Karen’s youth on our way to lunch.

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The day’s itinerary was a march to the top of 4,050 foot Hawksbill Mountain, the tallest peak in Shenandoah National Park. It’s also the last 4,000 footer headed north on the AT until New Hampshire.

The program’s topic was all the wonderful things a tourist can do in and around Culpeper, Virginia. Hiking on the AT is only one of them, and thus only a part of the subject at hand.

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Darley and Karen making tracks.

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Television production is tedious work. Endless b-roll has to be shot to serve as transitions between topics or video wall paper to cover voice-overs. You can never have enough in the editing process.

Karen and Darley did a lot of marching shots that will be used to stitch together parts of the AT segment.

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Lots of starts and stops on the way up.

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The folks involved in the shoot were many including Darley and her three person crew, plus writers from the Richmond, Virginia PBS station and representatives from the Culpeper chamber/tourism organization.

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Getting ready for the summit interview. They hid Karen’s mic in her hat – clever, but a hat is not something Karen normally wears. She’ll probably hear from her friends.

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During the actual interview, the mob hung out at a nearby outcrop where I busted a guy from Maine whose dogs were off leash. Dogs must be on leash to protect wildlife from harassment, but also to protect the dogs from from the bears, coyotes, raccoons, skunks and snakes who can inflict far worse on the dogs.

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Channeling Ansel Adams before heading back to the cars.

It’s a wrap. Stay tuned for the air date.

In the National Capitol Region, the program airs on Maryland Public Television and Howard University Public Television.

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

A Remarkable Blowdown

October 23, 2017 / jim fetig / 1 Comment

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Shenandoah National Park, October 20 – 21, 2017 — Imagine finding a 50-year-old locust tree prostrate on your favorite picnic table like a drunk passed out in a dark alley. Most of us didn’t know this stately friend had a problem. Regardless, there it was.

The Hoodlum’s crew weekend was off to an exciting start.

We suspect the last gasp of one of the recent hurricanes was responsible for doing a number on this poor tree that used to live at the Hoodlums trail crew hangout at Indian Run. The tree’s lush leaves fooled us. Termites had found its heart. It was weakened and didn’t need much to do it in.

The dead picnic table wasn’t the locust’s only victim. Our recently repaired reflector fire took a glancing blow significant enough to pop a few rocks loose.

On its way down or on a bounce, the dearly departed tree crunched our backup picnic table too. To add to the misfortune, we replaced the wood in each of the picnic tables only a year ago. Damn!

The good news is that the Indian Run maintenance hut suffered no damage. Amen!

Hasty clean up cleared usable space.

The fire was built on schedule.

The Hoodlums worked Saturday as scheduled on various trail repair projects with a small work party assigned to clean up this tree. Bottom line: We’ll have enough firewood for a next year.

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I was in the park earlier on Friday to work on the AT section I maintain and to get ready for a large work party assigned to help me finish rehabbing its erosion control structures and remove two blowdowns. After all of the leaves are down, I’ll make a trip to rake them out of the waterbar drains and put this puppy to bed for the winter.

A dirt waterbar called a grade dip. We’re getting away from using logs and stone whenever possible.

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A downed apple tree in an old orchard through which the AT passes.

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My guess is that a bear was climbing the tree an broke off a large limb.

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There were dozens of apples on the ground. This is unusual because the bears and deer love them and normally by this time, they are no longer on the market. The mast (food) has been excellent this year. The immediate area is full of oak and hickory trees and the nuts, apples and berries have been overstocked in contrast to two years ago when there was virtually nothing because of drought.

The potluck theme was Oktober Fest.

The kraut and brats were yummy.

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.

Shenandoah

I love PEOPLE!

From George’s House to the Daughter of the Stars

Annual Trail Maintainers Workshop

FKT Attempt: A Champion’s Story

Busy Week on the Trails

No rest for the wicked

Black Friday = Green Friday

PBS Travels with Darley

Windstorm Cleanup

A Remarkable Blowdown