Crew Report: Shelter Damage Assessment

 Humpback Rocks Parking Lot, getting the equipment ready.

 

 

This Crew Report was written and sent to the Trail Maintenance Supervisor by the Crew Leader/Project Manager detailing the March 16, 2013 trip to the AT/Paul C. Wolfe Shelter:

 

I describe Saturday as a work trip and not shelter repair, as we accomplished 4 objectives yesterday, one of which was shelter repair.

Dave G. (along with 2 - 2' X 4' sheets of 3/4" plywood which = 4' X 4' of very sturdy wood + nails), Rat and his friend Lori and I met at the Humpback Rocks Parking Lot (HRPL) at 9:00 a.m. Saturday. We had heard reports of numerous blow downs between there and Rockfish Gap (RFG) too, so I suited up and took the chainsaw along. Rat carried the plywood and he and Lori went in on the Jack Albright (JA) to recon that section of trail. Dave and I went in on the blue blazed access trail and headed north on the AT. There were small limbs and vines everywhere and we cut several smaller blow downs on the way to the shelter. The JA trail was clear from Dobie Mtn. to the intersection with the AT. With Dave at my side, I cut some more of the huge stump that is lying in the center of the trail near the shelter. Four months of rain had washed off some of the mud and rocks, so I was able to remove some more pieces of the stump.

Yes, regrettably, there was a 3' X 3' burned hole in the floor of the decking of the shelter. We did all the measurements, cleaned up and removed all the trash and covered the hole with the plywood, putting the table over the repair. The shelter was built very well and there is no structural damage. The plywood repair would probably last for the life of the shelter, but we've got the measurements needed for the final repairs. Fixing the hole was the easiest/quickest part of the entire trip. Dave left a new shelter register in the box. - Objective #1 completed.

 

 

Temporary porch floor repair in place at the Shelter.

Objective #2 - the nice folks who burned the shelter also bent, twisted and broke about 15 healthy 2 - 3" diameter hardwoods trees, leaving broken stumps and stems. As I do on most worktrips, I took the chainsaw and cut the broken stems off at ground level. This is to remove the very sad appearance of ruined trees and an attempt to allow the stems to possibly re-sprout. Dave took some pictures of this. Lori picked up a lot of trash and beers cans around all the camping sites too. Objective #2 completed.

 

Two of the broken small hardwoods are visible in this picture

 before being cut off at ground level.

 

 
There was a large blowdown within 200 yards of the shelter. A large ash tree fell over about 50 feet above the trail, leaving the stump popped out and in the air over a huge rock cliff. The top of the tree was punched in the trail over a flowing creek and also alongside a huge, slick rock. The blowdown had everything going for it, including the possibility of the stump sliding down the mountain and removing the sawyer; no place to stand safely, since a flowing creek was on one side and a slick rock on the other and no place to go up nor down for an escape route. Additionally it had what Slick, our chainsaw instructor from last Saturday, described as "...the 4 bind brothers..." top bind, bottom bind, side bind and I forget the 4th bind, but I'll call it the %$&*^$ bind. Did I mention that it also had the top attached above the trail that would crash down as soon as the lower sections were removed? Enough of that, suffice it to say that after last week's training and about an hour of cutting, it was safely rendered down.

A complex blowdown situation.

 

We continued north on the AT. Lori, Rat and Dave cut numerous vines and stems that had come down with the recent snows. They would stop and wait for me whenever they came to a blowdown. I would guess that I probably cut ~ 10 trees/large limbs covering the trail from HBPL to RFG. - Objective # 3 completed.

Since we got to the field at RFG ~ 4:00 p.m., I asked the crew if they would also help pick up litter there. Whenever the Parkway is closed, folks park there and deposit every type of inorganic (and organic) waste known to mankind. Rat even found and toted to the Parkway a huge, orange road construction barrel. We probably spent nearly an hour there and accumulated several large bags of trash. The clouds begin to thicken and about the same time, Walter (a shelter maintainer who lives in the area) drove by, saw us and stopped. He offered to haul out all the trash and no one argued with him. His timing was impeccable - by then it looked like the sky was going to open. - Objective #4 completed.

I had my car at RFG, so I shuttled Rat, Lori and Dave back to the Humpback Parking Lot. By the time I got back to Afton Mtn, it was pouring, with strong winds, lightning and thunder. That storm followed me all the way back to RIC.

It was a safe and very productive day. A Project Manager/Carpentry Crew to make the final repairs has been established and they have a list of the materials that will be needed. A tentative date has been set in the near future to make the final repairs.

Many thanks to Rat, Lori and Dave G. for their hard work yesterday, and to the other Lori (TMS), Karen, Ed and the other Dave (W.) for all the helpful suggestions and background work that was needed to pull this off so successfully.

~ Jim S. (Crew Leader)

(All photos: Dave G.)

 

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