June Work Trip Crew
Hi All -
Saturday was a gorgeous day for a work trip, and, in spite of the late start due to incidents on I-64 the crew of 22-1/2 (WOW!!) all made it to the Humpback Visitor Center to begin the days activities. OK, the 1/2 is my grandson who joined us for the picture!! LOL!! Five crews hit the trail covering most of our section from Reeds Gap to Rockfish Gap. Of course, Fran continued her blue blazing quest with Carl as her blazing buddy. They completed the blue blaze up and back from Humpback Rocks, and, just couldn't stop there. They then went to Humpback Picnic area and completed that blue blazing to up to the AT, making the two of them the last crew back....dragging in after 6:00.
The weed whacking crew jumped along the trail catching some of the weediest reported spots. That crew was made up of Bob, Paul, Dorothy, Regina (Ridge Runner) and myself. We tackled the weeds along the meadow at Reeds Gap, the entrances on both sides of the parkway at Three Ridges Overlook, then went to Dripping Rock and covered and area south of the parkway. We didn't stop there, next was the blue blaze trail starting at Humpback Parking down to the Howardsville, and some light swing blading up to Glass Hollow Overlook. The areas looked wonderful after the crew had been through and made it much easier to find the trail heads at the Blue Ridge Parkway entrances.
The Wintergreen crew covered the 2.6 mile section just south of the blue blaze behind Humpback Rocks all the way to Humpback Picnic. This crew included Dave, Karen, Karl, Steve, Margaret, David and Ed F. This crew took care of weedy areas in the trail, in addition to trail definition on an area that hikers had split into two separate paths. They did a fantastic job just check out the blog for both before and after pics!
Humpback sawyer crew were looking for trees reported down on the Jack Albright and the trail behind Humpback Rocks. On this crew was Ed P, Richard and John. In their search for these trees, they found a few more unexpected ones. There was a very happy circuit hiker when he found out the tree on the blue blaze from Humpback Parking to the Howardsville had been removed. Thanks guys!
Shelter crew's original plans were to get the tree down by the privy, clean out fire rings and spread the ashes, in addition to rehab just north of that area. The members of this crew were Jim, Christina, Tracey, Mike and Mark. All that changed when a tree near Rockfish Gap was reported. That meant an extra 5 miles to get that new tree. They had an additional unpleasant surprise when they found 4-5 large garbage bags of rotted trash behind the shelter. After bagging it all up into a trash burrito using Mike's tarp, Mike and Mark carried that 50 pounds of rotted trash out to the Visitor Center. This cleaning up after rude and ignorant hikers is not new to the maintenance crews and is very irritating since it takes away from the planned maintenance activities that need to be done and are the real reason we're all out on the trail. I know I'm speaking to the wrong audience here, but, if you're at the shelter or any area along our trail and see these types of abuses, please report them to the Park Rangers. (Kurt - any other words of advice?). This crew deserves a special thanks for those clean-up activities.
Additionally, special thanks to our first time maintainers this month - Paul, Dorothy, Carl, Tracey, Steve, Karl and Mark. Hope to see you all on work trips in the future!!
At the end of the day, everyone seemed to have a good time. I can't thank this wonderful June crew enough for all the work that was done this month!!!
Take care,
Lori
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