work report 6/20/2009 (Conley cove)

Date of work: 6/20/2009
Number of workers: 2 Jim and Jared de Friess
Time spent: 6 hours (includes commute)

Work accomplished: General trail maint on Conley Cove is a pretty good
summary. The details are as follows.

I was going to meet the Scouts from Charlotte at the Conley Cove trail
head just before 9am. I got there just after 8 am and noticed a note on
a van stating the scouts had already gone to the bottom of the hill.

Jared and I set out, he had the shears, I had the Pulaski. He started
trimming worst offenders, and I got ahead of him. I worked on some of
the muddy areas, trying to get active water off the trail. I also was
trying to get to the bottom pretty fast so I did minimal work going
down. Jared maintained a much slower pace shearing (he has a summer
cold and didn't feel well).

I met my first group of scouts by the 12" hickory that was across the
trail. They were in process of sawing it with a bow saw on the uphill
side. Another scout was chopping the other side with a hatchet, which
he eventually broke the handle on. Beyond them was the leader. They
had sent a group south on LGT to work about an hour and return, he had
passed on the information I had emailed him about trail corridor. He
was cleaning out a waterbar, and said others were working below.

They ended up using my pulaski to finish the hickory- at least the first
cut. I did tell them they had to watch out for cut trees sliding down
the hill and they were appropriately cautious. The second cut should
have been very straight forward as the trunk across the trail was
hanging in mid air.

I did give the leader an 1986 map, they had the national geographic
version- which only shows RJ going to about blue jay canyon. I pointed
out the Pinch In, LGT, Conley, and RJ "almost loop" as I call it and
told him that is where I concentrate. I also told him he send a group
down RJ , that some flagging existed, but it seemed to me I was planting
seeds for future efforts. I told them if they could get Conley done it
would be huge. He said something about I could talk to them at lunch,
but I didn't promise. Jared as you recall was working alone slowly
descending, and I had his water.

There was a tree- huge, that had fallen across the trail that I had to
pass on the way down. I told the leader I was heading for that
obstruction, and then probably up and out. The tree blocked the trail,
those passing below had to cross a 2' diameter trunk, and it appeared
some had slide down about 10-12' below the trail in their attempts.
Other hikers were going around on the uphill side. Coming down the
trail it was easy to get to the top side of the root ball, however the
established path was to slide down about a 70% slope while holding onto
a tulip poplar. I can't imagine how it was negotiated going up. My
plan was to notch it, and we did. I placed the notch too high, and
jumping back down on the trail on either side of the notch was not
without difficulty, because the trail had worn thin. About 16" of tread
width to hit and a steep hill awaiting pieces to give way. I didn't
think that was going to be a good solution long term. So I cut the
growth and the tulip poplar and made a less steep more backpacker
friendly climb to the uphill side of the root ball. One of the scouts
that was working with me had said he wanted to be a civil engineer, and
he helped a great deal. He was pleased with the bypass I instructed him
to build. If the trunk is cut, it may roll down the hill (another trail
section is below), or it may need to be rolled down the hill to have
decent tread width. Anyway that is for the experts to decide. It is
definitely more passable now. On the up uphill side and at the highest
point we made the tread a little more friendly.

While we were working in that area more Scouts showed up- those that had
driven up this morning. Also Jared.

I had walked down a narrow path, so Jared carried the Pulaski and I took
the shears on the way up. I clipped as I went, but Jared had made it
much better already. Not 4' wide, but a definitely noticeable clipping.
A couple areas I widened- Poison Ivy Ones, and some nettles.

There were two small trees across the trail one was cut right in the
middle and Jared and I cut the other one right in the middle. I hoped
the scouts would get another section of each with the bow saws.

I also worked where a stream crossed the trail, part of it was diverted
down the trail, I think I got it diverted to where only about 10' of the
trail will be an active stream, with plenty of rocks to step across.

Further up was another pine, waist high, we left it- hopefully for the
scouts. On the uphill side I could see a broken off trunk and the tree
was about 8" diameter where it needed to be cut.

At the RJ intersection it always seems wet, I 90 degreed a path across
the trail where some water could be diverted, and did a little tread
work where it looks like people had been sliding.

We made it out 4 hours after we went in. I passed a group of hikers who
claimed to have seen a copperhead on their way up. They said he was
leaving the trail area. The parking area at the trail head was full.

As to weather, it was cloudy all morning with the clouds breaking as we
returned to the car. Bugs were not a problem, a significant breeze
remained prevalent. Good conditions, but nevertheless I was spent.

Jared took me to Chik-Fil-A - dad's got a free milkshake for father's
day.

It is my hope the Scouts will help again in the future. It was a good
day in the woods. No pictures.

Jim d

6/18/2009 trailwork Southern Rock Jock

Date of work 6/18/2009
Number of workers:1 Jim de Friess
time spent 10 hours (even though two of that is commute- it is still way
too much time to be working in the gorge on a hot day)

I have very little to add to what Ken posted, I got there before he did
and trimmed the parking area. He pretty well described it.

I sling bladed way too long, but we got that part in good shape as he
said.

We noticed Poison Ivy crossing the trail near the back of Mossy Canyon,
and there was some on the road where we parked.

There were also some new trees across the trail, and since we were able
to step over them, we felt others could also. We were trying to get
near half way on the way in so we let them go, and on the way out we
were too tired.

SLOW-LOW is right.

I took no camera.

These posts are automatically going to a google blog at this address

http://lgtrailwork.blogspot.com/

>From ken's post he is highlighting the section of trail we worked -there
is a link. Michael's response went to the blog too. I deleted it from
the blog. Reply to all- kill the blog address, I wouldn't have thought
that would happen. Oh well.

Trail Work on Rockjock 18jun09

18jun2009
Trail: Rockjock 
Workers: Ken Crump
Time Spent: 10.5 hours including travel time

Work done:

I met Jim at the south end of Rockjock at about 8:15 this morning. Our tentative
plan was to hike to the Crevasse Creek area where I had worked to earlier in the
spring and try to work back to Mossy Falls where we had worked to from the south
last time.  Well, you know what they say about the "best laid plans".  We found
that with all the recent rain and warm weather, that the vegetation had grown heavily,
and in spots the trail was becoming almost overgrown again.  So, we ended up doing
some work as we descended to the cliff line, and then really picked up the pace in
Mossy Canyon.  Jim was using his sling, and I was working with shears. 

It was hot and sweaty work, but with a couple of short breaks, we made it to
the point known as Tshirt, and declared that our turn around point at around 2pm
or a little later. Tshirt is not quite as far as we'd talked about making it, but if
we'd continued I'm afraid we'd have become buzzard bait and we were both
drained of energy.  So, we turned around and started making our way back, doing
some clipping on the return trip also.  We took a good break at Mossy Falls, using
bandannas soaked in the cool water to refresh ourselves.  That and sitting in the
shade for a while seemed to help a lot.  After that it was navigate the slick wet rocks
in the back of the canyon and then make our way up the hill to the road.  We did
that in the only gear left SLOW-LOW. There is a short section near the road that
still needs some attention, but the rest of the area we covered today is now in pretty
good shape.  Who knows what will grow over the next few weeks though.

I have a trailwork map here:

http://www.linvillegorge.net/trailwork.html

Give it 20 seconds or so to load and the trails will be visible with some waypoints.
You can zoom in and out and move around.  A list of tracks will show up.  The
last two are Sunday's, and today's work areas. Clicking the track name will turn
them on and off. Today's track measured about 1.2 miles.  Sunday's about 0.6.

We didn't see a soul today, but the buzzards were watching us closely.
Thanks for another great day in the Gorge, Jim, and thanks for all your help.

Ken

June 14, 2009 Trail work -Northern Rock Jock

Date of work: June 14, 2009
Number of workers: 1 (Jim de Friess)
time spent: 7 hours includes commute
Work accomplished: Summary of work- we (me and Ken) clipped growth back
using a sling blade and shears.

We had posted to Yahoo to see if anyone wanted to join us for today's
work trip. We meet at Pinch In trail head, then go to the work site.

Today while we were waiting two men (father and son) pulled into the
parking lot. They inquired if we anything about trail work, and said
they were part of a Charlotte Scout troop that was planning to come to
the gorge next weekend for trail work.

They came this weekend to scout out the trails, their plan was to go
down Pinch In up LGT, and then turn around. We discussed their group
size (I was under the impression it would be about 30) and he said some
people had opted out of going since work would be involved. I told them
they should go down Pinch In then north and come out Conley. I also
told them a day trip down Babel to clip would be nice. They seemed most
interested in southern LGT, but were going to keep their options open.
He wanted to make it a yearly thing at least- we could always hope.

He wanted a trail maintenance demonstration for his boys, I said I might
be willing to do that for him. The USFS should have first chance though
if they can. He's thinking it needs to be on Saturday, I did give him my
telephone and email.

Ken and I then headed for old conley- the shortcut into north RJ. Once
we got to the trail we started clipping and widening. Flagging that may
have led an unsuspecting hiker down a spur trail was removed, and the
main trail was worked, new growth clipped back. We worked going uphill
and coasted down, that lasted all of one hill as we worked all of fern
canyon.

Coming out of fern we took a break, other than the large flat area that
looks down on hacker's point. We then decided to go to hacker's because
we had heard of some activity there, and wanted to see what was done.

At hackers, and part of the way down into bluejay we widened the trail
to a proper width and removed some of the spurious trail flagging. Our
effort focused on making the proper trail the most inviting.

Just passed where the trail turns right (or else you go out to hackers
point) about 20 yards down there is a steep rock. Ken went over it and
was working ahead. It looked like someone had done a little work to
make it so that a hiker would not have to go down that rock. I was
sling blading beside it when something moved. It was a copperhead,
right eyes, head shape, everything. He was laying just under the low
end of the rock - Ken passed about 2 feet from the edge on the rock. He
didn't like my sling blading in that area so he grew legs and ran (just
kidding- he definitely slithered) further under the rock. It all
happened so fast that a picture was not possible. We worked ahead and
when we came back on the way out we looked for it (or brothers, sisters,
cousins, etc) to no avail.

I said he grew legs so Michael would know that not only are briers
afraid of me. Of course a yellow hat and sling blade does make me
pretty scary.

I had an evening appointment so we turned and worked what we walked by
until Ken's watch said 5, then we only clipped major offenders as we
walked out.

When we got to the road the younger of the two men was walking back
toward Pinch In parking. They had decided not to go up Pinch In but
rather Conley. He and his father had separated (he was faster), and he
was to walk the road back to the car, and come back for dad. Ken gave
him a ride.

As we went up over Dogback mtn, he commented that his road walk would
have been "some hike".

What a wonderful gorge day, I met the scoutmaster bringing young trail
workers next weekend, and saw my first actual poisonous snake in the
gorge.

Jim d