Trail Maintenance on the Long Trail, Belvidere Mountain Section

On Friday morning of last week, Dave and I hustled out of the house to hit Belvidere Mountain to do trail maintenance on the Long Trail, before driving 3 hours to New Hampshire for a weekend spent with family.

We had hiked Belvidere the previous weekend and at one point in the hike we had to crawl under a huge birch tree blocking the trail. We talked about thru-hikers (people who hike the 274-mile long trail from one end to the other, also known as end-to-enders) and how they would have to unbuckle their packs, set the heavy load on top of the tree, and crawl underneath before putting their packs back on. Soon hikers would get tired of going under and start hiking around the tree, breaking a new trail, which might create erosion problems. Dave decided he wanted to come back to the birch tree with his chainsaw. He asked the Director of the Green Moutain Club, Ben Rose, if it was okay to do some trail maintenance and got the go ahead. So Friday was the day to make it happen.

I carried the saw to get a better workout and to help Dave out--the extra weight on his bad ankle would not be a good thing. While trying to figure out a way to strap the saw on my pack, I came up with the idea of putting a board in my pack for extra stability to tie the saw against. Worked like a charm!

Doo, doo, doo. On we hike up and up to find our first tree. We passed the birch on the way up, deciding to cut it on our way down.

Cutting our first tree off of the trail.

Down we go to find more trees! Our first tree was as high as we decided to hike; we made it pretty close to the summit before heading back down.

The big old birch! Dave is starting his cut and my heart is pounding because it was a big tree!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz goes the saw.

Now from underneath. Dave work from the top and the bottom of the tree, trying to figure out the best way to keep from pinching the saw with the weight of the tree. If he pinched the saw in the tree, we would have been screwed, unable to get the saw out of the tree.

Once he got through the tree, it sprang back up like a hinge. The weight of the roots, that were still attached to the ground, tugged the tree back into place, making it look like someone climbed up on a ladder to cut the tree in half.

Now for the rest of the tree so we can roll it off of the trail.

We got pretty wet during the hike. At one point, while we were hiking down, the clouds opened and dumped massive amounts of water on us. We decided that if it were raining that hard when we came upon the birch we would just have to step under the tree and keep hiking, not stopping to clear it for fear of slipping. We also wanted to keep the saw from getting soggy! But the rain cleared and we were free to cut.

We did it! The trail was open once again, ready for boot soles to pack it down.

Back at the car and ready for a shower.

Climbing at Prospect Rock and Volunteering for the GMC

A couple of weekends ago, Dave and I went climbing with four other friends, two of which where new acquaintances, to Prospect Rock, a small climbing area about 20 minutes north of our house. Unlike this week, the black flies hadn't come out too thick then and the deer flies were still tucked away. Prospect Rock climbs are a bit obscure in that the climber has to rappel from the top of the cliff to get to the start of the climb. We were told that one of the climbs should be considered off-limits due to a pair of nesting ravens. This peaked my interest simply because I am reading Bernd Heinreich's Mind of The Raven, a book about his interactions with and studies about ravens.

I wanted to see the nest but knew to keep my distance. One thing, though, that Heinreich's book has taught me is that it is okay to handle young ravens in the nest and not worry about the mother rejecting them. Heinreich and several colleagues spent much time high in tall pine trees banding ravens for their studies. Not once did the mother reject the babies because of this human interaction. I didn't advance on the raven nest though. Better to leave it alone, especially in such a high traffic area.

We climbed most of the day, ascending routes from 5.4 to 5.10 mostly on top rope. Nothing too strenuous. And at about 5 PM, we hiked the short distance from the bluffs to our cars where we would split up; Dave and I heading home and the rest of the gang detouring to a set of bluffs located a few miles west, off of route 15.

Once home, Dave and I showered and took the dogs out before eating dinner and watching The Wrestler, a movie recommended by our friends Jane and Seth about a semi-retired, washed out, professional wrestler who struggles from a heart attack and is told that he can never wrestle again. In his attempt to change his life and assimilate back into every day life, he finds out his true home and family is in the ring. The movie was pretty interesting, a bit funny, somewhat disturbing, and sad. Check it out if you get the chance!

The following weekend, I began my first volunteer opportunity for the Green Mountain Club, proofreading the Events section of their website. Next week I'll be hauling bark mulch up to Bamforth Ridge Shelter, supplying the compositing privies with the secret ingredient for the decomposition of crap! Dave has been volunteering for the Green Mountain Club as well, helping them at their newly built Visitor Center on Fridays.

After a couple of hours spent proofreading, Dave and I high-tailed it to Smugglers' Notch for a day hike up to Whiteface Shelter. On the trail, we met our first thru-hiker of the season, Hitman (spooky trail name but cool guy), who had been hiking for 19 days straight and had lost his hiking partner some few days ago (his partner was having a hard time on the trail and decided to quit). Hitman's plan was to finish the trail before moving to Chicago, where he grew up and lived prior to moving to Vermont to attend the University of Vermont. He had a shiny new knee brace on and I couldn't help but wonder where he bought it and whether he had knee injuries before starting the trail, or if the rough terrain caused his knee to hurt. I figured it was the latter.

As we chatted near Hagerman's Lookout, the place where Hitman stopped to take a photo of Mt. Mansfield, I caught a glimpse of a book in his pack. He pulled it out to fit the camera in but I could not catch the title or author. I wondered if in his 19 days straight of hiking, he had even cracked the spine.

Alas, that is the abbreviated version of what I have been up to the last couple of weekends, which brings us to today. Dave and I are planning on hiking Belvidere Mountain today and stacking the huge mass of wood, that he and our neighbor gathered, tomorrow.

Finally, keep your fingers crossed for me and a possible opportunity coming up next week. I can't divulge any information as of now but will definitely spill the beans if, as the Big Lebowski would say, Some news things come to light!

(Photos of climbing at Prospect Rock below.)