WOW: Building bridges

Each year, the 46er trailmasters run a "Women's only weekend". Under the guidance of the trailmasters a DEC worker, the women work together to perform some sort of trail maintenance.

On Friday, Jul 28, the women started arriving at the Putnam Pond campground. Everyone sat around chatting a bit, then retired early, before two hard days of work. This year, the project was to build two bridges.

Saturday morning, at 8:00AM, everyone carpooled down rt 74 a bit, then headed down a trail leading to Crane Pond. We had several well known celebrities from here: Woodstrider, Timmus, Dory and her sidekick Amy. Before long, we arrived at the work site, and almost immediately, several of the women headed into the woods and started stripping. A picture of that is here:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/stripping.jpg

It didn't take them long at all to finish stripping the bark from a hemlock that Darwin of the DEC had cut the day before. While this group was working doing that, others were ripping apart the old bridge. Here's Marylou hauling a piece for disposal.

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/marylou.jpg


It's too bad that it wasn't a busy trail, because this next shot is something rarely seen: A team of women hauling an 800 pound log with log carriers:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/loghaul.jpg

A comment from me, here. In general, women are not that strong in their upper bodies. They worked hard moving heavy stuff, and it was impressive. Another comment as an observer: The women are amazing in how well they work together. No competition, but they work as a team. Once the stringers were in place, the top had to be flattened to make it safer to walk across. I love the following picture, because it has so many people working together. One does not see that in a group of guy trailworkers:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/topcut.jpg

Here is a picture of the completed bridge, followed by the team that built it:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/bridge.jpg

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/gang1.jpg

Oh yes. Note the troll under the bridge in the following:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/troll.jpg

After a hard day, in the hot sun, most rode back to the campsite, however, Marylou, Noryce, and Lorianne decided to hike back 10 miles... In the rain. Back at camp, everyone (except the three) enjoyed a few beers with some appetizers, then we all had a Thai supper. As supper was finished, three hungry wet walkers arrived back. Fortunately there was enough food left.

Several had to leave that evening, but we still had enough the next day to build another bridge. This time, they had to drop a tree themselves. I always find there is something sexy about women with axes, and here we have some shots of them working to get the tree down.

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/wwa1.jpg

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/wwa2.jpg

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/wwa3.jpg

Finally, under the supervision of Darwin (just in case someone thinks they were cutting trees without permission), the tree starts down

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/treefall.jpg

And again here is the Sunday Gang:

http://newmud.comm.uottawa.ca/~pete/wow/gang2.jpg

In that picture are Marylou, Dory, Noryce, Wanda, Any, Woodstrider, Jane, Timmus and Loraine.

I consider myself lucky to have been at that weekend. I'm still amazed at how cooperative everyone was, and how much of a good time they had, in spite of their sore muscles. Thanks you.

A wild women working in the woods weekend! Wow indeed! I spent two nights at Putnam Pond earlier this month. Paddled the pond and hiked Treadway Mt. and the area around there. Didn't get over to the eastern part of the Pharoah Wilderness. I look forward to exploring that area more. Thanks to this crew for their hard work.

Matt

Dinner!

Pete,

Again thanks for the amazing dinner! I had such a great time, we will most definitely be back!

Dory