Checking out a huge tree and a big mess.
After Sandy blew through a couple of weeks ago, there were two difficult trees that needed to be cleared off the trail north of Humpback. Both trees required a sawyer crew and Sawyer Jim S. had his crew out bright and early Saturday morning. They went in on Section 5 off of the Howardsville Turnpike and hiked all the way to Rockfish Gap, a distance of 7.8 miles, toting a chainsaw, all of the protective gear, fuel, two (heavy!) rock bars and other tools for tread repair. The weather cooperated with cool (lower 50's) temperatures which made for a very pleasant day as long as you kept moving or working and this crew had no trouble doing either!
Christina W. took all of the great photos on this post and documented the process of cleaning up a major tree that was on Section 4, just below the 'overlook' on the way to the shelter. As you can see, getting this tree off the trail required some significant, experienced sawyer work and a lot of muscle. The original goal was to see if the stump itself could be moved, but that didn't happen, even with the help of a Boy Scout troop that stopped to lend some 'push power' on their way to the shelter. The trail tread had to be re-worked around the stump, but that's not an uncommon occurrence when you have a tree this big going down and blowing out all or a portion of the trail tread when the roots give way and pull up the ground all around. Here are the pictures for 'Difficult Tree #1':
'Difficult Tree #2', while much smaller, had fallen across the trail high enough for hikers to walk under; however, it was still a hazard because eventually it was going to come all the way down on the trail. Cutting the tree from the 'stump end' was not safe for the sawyer so the tree was cut from the top end (tangled in a lot of vines) piece by piece. As the length of the tree trunk got shorter, the situation became safer and finally the stump end could be cut off. The first picture in this series was taken on a scouting trip weekend before last and the rest were taken this past Saturday as the tree was taken down.
Tree as found by the scouting crew Nov. 3.
No, that's not a 'post turtle' on the left .... just confirmation that these folks still have a sense of humor at the end of the day!
The hardworking CREW that tackled and cleaned up the two difficult trees (and other work as well):
GREAT JOB!!
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