Maintainers In The Mist (Sec 1)

 

 Naughty Girl Creek in fog and mist.

Our crew started at Rockfish Gap with the goal of cleaning out and repairing the existing waterbars that have been installed on Section 1, and rogueing out larger rocks that tend to block the tread way after erosion has exposed them (i.e. the toe trippers). Section 1 runs from Rockfish Gap on the north end to Naughty Girl Creek, about 1.8 miles south. A large portion of this section was built on an old road bed, so not much consideration was given to getting water off the trail when it was constructed over 20 years ago.

The existing waterbars on the northern portion have been consistently maintained over the past 6 months and have held up well. Our goal was to make it to the southern end of the section where it had been some time since the waterbars were maintained. That section also had numerous large rocks exposed in the tread way. We worked our way to the southern end of the section and had a brief lunch break.

Fog shrouded this section the entire day along with a heavy mist. By 1:00 p.m. a slightly more persistent rain continued so we picked up the pace. We rehabbed 9 waterbars on the far southern section and removed the worst of the offending toe trippers. We stopped at another stream crossing and cleaned off our muddy tools (and hands). The crew did an amazing job and repaired a total of 36 waterbars, even finishing earlier than expected (3:15 p.m.) in order to attend the maintainer's picnic at Sherando Lake. We won the award for "dirtiest-looking" crew :-)

   ~ Jim S. (Crew leader)

Thanks to this "award wining" crew .... Jim, Margaret, Craig, Bob & Eric ..... for a hard day of work under difficult conditions!

♦ ♦ ♦

(Photo: Christina W.)