The winds can blow strong here in the Champlain Valley, strong enough to topple some big trees along the Boquet Mountain Trail and Beaver Flow Trail. So we will gather together for a trail project on Saturday, September 18th at 9:00 am on a beautiful late summer day to cut our way through the fallen trees and open up the trails.
Useful tools will be saws to cut through large trunks and branches, axes to do some chopping ("careful" is the word), and loppers to cut the smaller stuff. We generally are not fans of chain saws (noise, CO2, smell, exhaust) so we plan for our party of hand-tool enthusiasts to do the job.
This project makes me think of old black-and-white photos of whiskery woodsmen standing in the snow holding their 8-foot saws on cloudy days by a sawn trunk as big as a house. Our fallen trees aren't that big but they have been described as "large."
We will meet at 9:00 am at the Whallonsburg Grange on Saturday, September 18 and work until noon and for those who can stay longer, into the afternoon. If you are not a tree-cutter, you will enjoy moving the cut branches, hiking the trail, and breathing the clear Champlain Valley air.
In case you missed the July 17th and August 21st trail projects here is a quick summary: It takes a lot of work to maintain a trail through an old field because if you don't get out there often enough to cut back the grasses, what was once an obvious trail becomes a question about where to go. This has been the case at the Bobcat Trail as it heads south from Walker Road across Eddy Foundation property west of Whallonsburg.
The CATS Trail Committee Chairman, Bill Amadon, realized that we could move the trail to the eastern edge of the property and follow an old stone wall located between the edge of a mostly-deciduous woods and an overgrown Christmas tree plantation. Thus, problem solved--trail goes through the woods where it is easier to maintain, shadier on hot summer days, and able to keep snow longer for cross-country skiers.
On July 17th and August 21st, our small volunteer trail parties cut the new beginning to the Bobcat Trail so it now passes through the woods; those mornings were hot which confirmed the mathematical theory that hot summer days = fewer volunteers; nevertheless, the perfect number of people always show up and we successfully created the new trail entrance. Because hikers do sometimes like to walk in fields, which are now beautifully bathed in yellow goldenrod, we will do occasional maintenance where the Bobcat Trail goes through the field so you can see the sunflowers, grassland birds, and dragonflies; but the trailhead will now be about 100 yards east of the old entrance. We expect that people making it a there-and-back hike will see on their return that they have the option of staying on the new trail in the woods next to the stone wall or going through the field.
Ah, choices...that is what hiking, and life, are all about.
♫♫Happy Trails♫♫
Chris Maron
Champlain Area Trails
Executive Director
