Sawyer 'art' on the remains of Big Tree, just north of Bear Spring.
For the May work trip, Dave G. and I were partnered up for a 2-person crew. The Plan for us was to hike in to the AT sections on the 'back side' of Humpback Mountain, work our way down the mountain (north on the AT) weeding, cleaning water bars, and taking care of any other issues we found. We would hike out via Howardsville Turnpike to the HB Rocks Parking Lot and then across the road to the tool shed. The easiest way to get to the 'top' of HB (the signed intersection of a blue-blaze to the rocks & the AT) is an old fire road that starts at the HB Picnic Area. Once you get past the first two 'ups', you can pretty much cruise on the rest of it and end up in a little 'saddle' where you can pick up the AT, pop over a minor 'up', and be headed downhill for that intersection with the blue-blaze. The fire road is a beautiful hike, however it is not maintained and the only concern I have about using it is that the weeds, etc. are knee-high and if you're about to step on something bad (like a snake) you probably won't see it until it's too late. It's also a really good idea to spray your pants legs down with a good tick/chigger deterrent.
Visitor's Center (and bathrooms) are open - yay!
We snagged a ride with Ed & his crew who dropped us off at the Picnic area and after a pleasant hike of 30 minutes or so, we were at the saddle/AT intersection. We popped over the rise to the long downhill and it was as I suspected .... pretty grown up already. This piece of AT is at the very end of the long 2.6 mile section between HB Picnic and the blue-blaze/AT intersection and it takes almost constant attention to keep the weeds down ...... so a little extra help is a 'good thing'. One water bar had been dug out enough that we left it alone, but the other one was so filled in with dirt it was all but non-existent. Dave and I split up and got to work - he started digging out the water bar and I started weed whipping.
May I say that if you want a water bar cleaned out, Dave is your man - he did a super job! After some considerable digging, he was questioning whether the water bar needed to be 'faced' with rock. We knew we did not have time to get involved in a rock project this trip; however, our speculation was that originally, the water bar had been faced with rock so Dave kept digging and eventually started getting to rock that he thought was part of the original water bar installation. By this time, there was a considerable hole in the trail ..... but Dave did a great job incorporating the newly 'revived' water bar back into the trail bed despite the fact that the slope is very steep there so what you can do is limited. We talked to a couple of hikers who walked over that water bar after the 'big dig' and they seemed undaunted by its presence so I think we're about as good as we can get on that particular structure. One thing is for sure, I don't think a lot of water is going to be making it past that water bar in the near future!
The water bar 'big dig' ..... looking good, even got a few leaves scattered so it doesn't look quite so 'new'.
Meanwhile, back on the weed destruction portion of our project, I was sweating and swinging. This section was vacant last year so keeping up with it was a struggle all summer. This trip, we were early enough to whip the new growth back while the foliage was still tender. If the growth gets a "jump" on you, the stems of new bushes and trees harden off and then your swing blade just doesn't get through it very well, if at all, and it makes for a lot of hard, extra work later on. I whipped back what I could and then spent the rest of the time with my loppers, cutting off all the bushes/little trees that had taken hold and were encroaching. Full disclosure: bushes that you can't 'get' with a swing blade are a pet peeve of mine .... I hate 'em!! Future weed whipping should be a lot easier on this hillside ..... especially with a section maintainer now assigned to regularly work on it. The reward for keeping up with weeds/brush is that you can see in future years where the brush just doesn't 'come back' with the same vigor/volume as in areas that don't get the early, aggressive weed whipping treatment. We never win the weed 'war' (Mother Nature wins overall), but we can win some smaller battles!
Before weeding .......
After weeding & lopping.
The work Dave and I did on the water bar and weeds was the bulk of our work on this trip. It took a long time .... much longer than I anticipated. Finally, we were happy enough with what we'd done and moved on to check out the 'short' blue-blaze down to the main trail to the Rocks. We cleared some small downed trees/limbs etc. and I realized I was going to have to 'swing' this section, too. It is part of my section responsibility and it was just 'getting up' too much to leave it .... so it was a slow, tiring slog back up to the AT.
Back at the sign/intersection, we ran into a thru-hiker who found retirement living in FL just way too tame and boring so he was on the trail and evidently, having the adventure of his life - he was quite a lively, talkative character! Another much quieter thru-hiker was in the process of fixing himself a hot lunch ..... he breezed past us later on and we also saw several other thru-hikers and a good number of day hikers out and about. Folks were more than appreciative of the maintenance work and quite a few asked the name of the maintaining club so we filled them in and gave out the club website a couple of times as well.
Tree down just north of the McDougal Stairs .... thru-hiker had just passed us by.
We were making our way down the trail doing a little lopping, some swinging, moving loose rocks, downed limbs, etc. but were beginning to run up on the time when you have to quit maintaining and start hoofing it out. We had a deadline to be back at the tool shed by 4:30 to meet Ed. As we hiked down the short stretch of BRP to the tool shed, Ed drove by with his crew - perfect timing! The other crews came in shortly thereafter ..... always a good thing to see everybody back and hear what kind of a day they had on the trail. When you see folks 'tired but smiling', it's been a good day on the AT!
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