One Burrito, Please & Hold The Salsa!

The stepping stones across Mill Creek & 4 of the 5 'Shelter Crew' members.

We had planned to clean up the fire ring and spread the ashes, clean up the shelter, cut up a blow down on the path to the privy and then work on rehab north of the shelter on Section 3 (Shelter to Long Rock), parts of which had been flagged on earlier work trips. Then someone told me about a messy blow down on Section 1 (Rockfish Gap to Naughty Girl Creek). I had to make a decision on how to do our planned work PLUS get within 1 mile of Rockfish Gap - no easy solution.

A clear path to the privy after a downed tree was removed.

The fire pit was cleaned out. Also, ashes previously cleaned from the fire ring (prior to this work trip) had been piled 18'' - 24" up against adjacent trees. The ashes had to be collected and then widely & thinly dispersed in the woods to avoid causing harm to the tree(s).

While returning from an ash-spreading trip, a crew member found 4-5 large garbage bags of rotted trash that had been left behind the shelter*. The bags had been there for a while and not only were they beginning to disintegrate, but the trash was infested with maggots. Finding a way to carry such a large amount of nasty, stinking trash in bags that were falling apart was problematic.

"Necessity is the mother of invention" ...........

 so, using Mike's tarp, the trash was packaged up into what the crew dubbed a "burrito"! Here it is, ready for the hike out (and the guys are still smiling!!).

After spending a lot of time on the fire ring, the shelter and the trash, I gave Mike and Mark the choice of hauling the trash to Humpback Parking Lot or Rockfish Gap. I also asked for a volunteer to walk with me to Rockfish Gap to get the tree/blow down. Mark and Mike opted for hiking the heavy load of trash out to the Humpback Parking Lot.

Both Tracey and Christina opted to assist me. They are awesome – Christina kept the conversation lively with her botanical knowledge (as I gulped for air dragging the chainsaw/safety gear and me up the mountains).  This was Tracey's first work trip - the training was definitely 'on-the-job' since we had so much to do and so far to walk in a very limited time after leaving the shelter. When we got to ~ 1 mile of Rockfish Gap, we found a small tree down, but it had a HUGE amount of vines that it had dragged down with it – along with a bypass path around it way off the official trail. I cut the tree and Christina and Tracey cleaned up the mess.

A beautiful red eft that crawled out from under the downed tree.

 

EVERYONE worked hard at the shelter, Mike and Mark are awesome and so are Christina and Tracey ….I could not have had a more reliable, hard-working and FLEXIBLE crew!  Jim S. (Crew leader)

The 'Shelter Crew' (4 of 5) includes crew member not in the first picture.

(Thanks to Christina W. for the pictures!)


*Note: If you're at the shelter or any area along our trail and see these types of abuses in progress or the aftermath such as the rotting trash stash at the shelter, please report them to the Park Rangers.