The view from Humpback Rocks Parking Saturday morning - sunny, breezy & beautiful!
Who would think that on June 2, you would be wanting to wear a jacket and long pants on the trail? Relatives in the Valley said it was down to 45 the night before and they had to turn the furnace back on. Added to the nip already in the air was the windchill from a very stiff breeze and the result was ..... well, it was almost cold!!
Once in the woods, especially out of the wind and going up the back side of Humpback Mountain on the AT, it wasn't long before the jacket was coming off. The cool temps actually made for a perfect day to be doing trail maintenance and the project for the day was to weed whip and put a major 'snip and clip' job on the section just south of the Howardsville Turnpike. Since the winter was very mild and there seems to have been plenty of rain in the area, the trail is trying to turn into a green 'jungle' much earlier than normal and this section needed a good dose of weed control before anything got much higher. (Note: the regular maintainers are sidelined for a few weeks so Lori & I were filling in).
The plan for the day was to hike to the end of the section and work our way back (and downhill). As we initially hiked up the mountain, not long before getting to Bear Spring, we passed a hiker going south who asked about the spring's location .... we told him he hadn't missed it and gave him some landmarks. When we got to the spring, he was filling up his water bottles and having some lunch, so we hiked farther south and on to the next trail section to give him some time to himself (he seemed like the quiet type). Earlier, hiking in to the section while still on Howardsville Turnpike, we met a couple from Michigan who told us that 'somewhere back there' was a tree that was down across the AT - not an easy stepover, but a hip-high hoist-a-leg-over situation. Lucky for us that we went up the trail past Bear Spring because we found the tree they had been telling us about.
The tree the Michigan thru-hikers described to us - you can see how high it is above the trail.
We decided to hike on by for the time being while contemplating how much time we wanted to invest in doing some major cutting on this tree with only an 18-inch pruning saw. Farther south, and almost within sight of the downed tree, is a unique section of trail that I always think of as 'alpine' for some reason. It is primarily a patch of mountain laurel bushes (some were still blooming) with pinxter flowers mixed in, some rhododendrons and, at the very end of the 'Alpines' where a road bed begins, the trail is also lined with blueberry bushes on both sides. Even if the bushes encroach close to the trail, I rarely cut them back much, if at all .... the hikers and the wildlife enjoy the ripe berries and this year, it looks like there will be a nice crop.
The blueberries are still greenberries, but not for long.
Back to that tree ..... looking at the situation as we approached from the other side, even if we cut it (we'd only have time/energy to be making one major cut), the ends were not going to settle closer to the ground to make passage easier and getting it totally off the trail was going to be impossible for the two of us. We decided to opt for a quick but strategic 'cleanup' with the pruning saw that would make staying on the trail tread and getting over the tree easier. It was a great decision because the small amount of wood we did have to saw through was very hard .... this was one tough tree.
The tree as we found it.
After we sawed off the two branch stobs that were sticking out and in the way of swinging a leg over the tree.
The temporary 'fix' being successfully hiker tested ... they stayed on the trail and were able to get over the tree without much difficulty.
'Tree trouble' temporarily resolved until the sawyers can take care of it permanently, we headed north for Bear Spring. The spring marks the beginning of the section we were going to be working on; however, one additional task at the spring itself was to clean out the water pipe. When we went past it the first time, the water was barely coming out .... the flow was in fast drips with an occasional dribble of slightly more water. After a quick pipe cleanout, the spring flow was significantly improved. (Note: pipe position was not moved/disturbed in cleaning ... just the inside was roto-rootered out - thanks to former maintainer Elton for the method & the means to keep the pipe open and the water flowing when the spring is running)
A nice water flow at Bear Spring after a quick pipe cleaning.
Once Bear Spring was in good shape, it was down to the 'nitty gritty' ..... weed whipping and snipping/clipping. We worked steadily until almost 1:30 and finally stopped for lunch. This butterfly paid us a visit while we were eating:
Once we finished eating and got back to work, just beyond our lunch spot were the 'MacDougall Steps' and they got a thorough cleaning (as did the 'Kyle Steps' much farther down the trail):
MacDougall Steps - much easier to see when they are not buried under old leaves.
The only wildflowers we saw blooming on this section were these purple ones ......
Perhaps Beardtongues? I need to find my wildflower book!
"Bear Corn" .... the woods were full of it .... I've never seen so much growing in such big patches and in so many different spots:
Only one of many patches of Bear Corn that we saw along the trail.
Butterflies, Beardtongue(?) and Bear Corn aside, this trail section had some long stretches that were already quite thick and knee-high with weeds and brush (i.e. baby trees, bushes, briers, grapevine) in some places. After previously trying a 'before" and "after" weeding picture that was unsuccessful (mostly green blending into green), here's another try ..... and this one shows fairly well what we were dealing with for the better part of the day:
'Before' ........pack (19 " high - I measured it) sitting in the weed jungle.
Pack in the very same spot ..... 'after' the weeds got a good thrashing with the swing blade.
We were determined to stay out and get this entire section done and after 9 hours of trail work, we were finished. This section is now in really good shape and should stay 'good' until the regular section maintainers can get back on it. It is definitely in much better shape than we were in when we finally got back to the Humpback Rocks Parking lot .... even though we were happy to be back at the car, getting in (and later out of) the car was the big challenge (ouch!).
Despite the physical aftermath, we still had a great day. This also happens to be the time of year when lots of thru-hikers are on the trail so you hear some stories .... the couple from Michigan (happy to be back on the trail after 9 days off for a medical emergency), Sparky from Arizona (after 800 miles, amazed to finally see some 'real maintainers', not just the evidence of their work .... he took pictures), and Glog from New York - all stopped to chat a while. We saw at least 6 more thru-hikers, most of whom were cruising at warp speed down the trail with the goal of making Waynesboro (and the buffet line) by nightfall. As one girl (who didn't stop to chat) told me as she happily breezed by "I'm going to be eating in Waynesboro tonight!" We also talked to two section hikers and saw a couple of day hikers, like the couple who tested out our temporary tree fix. I think almost everyone we saw (even the ones who were cruising by) said 'thank you' for the maintaining work ..... the best of the best for me was from one of the thru-hikers who said:
"You are the real trail angels .... without you there would not be this great trail for us to be out here hiking .... thank you very much for all of your work!"I think this is the perfect note on which to end the day ...........
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