Who does trail work?

Great poll.

I absolutely need to do my part to do more trail work, and I hope to next year. I do always pick up trash - especially when visiting swimming holes, which get absolutely trashed. I pulled 2-3 bags of trash out of some of them while visiting this summer.

I can't believe how trashed some swimming holes get -wrappers, beer, towels/clothes left behind, etc.

As a side note, New England has lost public access to dozens of waterfalls/swimming holes over the last 10 years due to people's trash being left behind. For that reason, picking up trash seems to be just as important as trail work to me.

Neil said:

Due to the wording of the of the 2nd sentence of the final choice as well as that of the pollster's opening post I can't help shake the impression that this poll is serving more as a venting and a finger pointing mechanism than a data gathering device.

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Perhaps to those who do not know Tom. Frankly, he doesn't have a mean bone in his body.

i spent a summer cutting about 8 miles of new ski trails and hiking trails for the amc in the newly purchased (at the time) maine wilderness. wielding a chainsaw and a gas powered brush cutter, chopping down trees like toothpicks.

i now spend my days planting trees in the middle of the trail to rid myself of the guilt.

kidding. sorta.

Trail work is a very satisfying way to give back to the environment after years of enjoyment in the seemingly never ending (??) pursuit of peaks.

I'm nearing completion of my 18th year as a caretaker of the Webster-Jackson trail in Crawford Notch, along with my partner, Dave Chirnitch (AMC Adopt-A-Trail).

I'm also the caretaker-warden of an AVIS Reservation in Andover, MA and have worked with Trailwrights, NH Trail Crew, ADK 46ers and other local groups.

I split the required 3 days on my AMC maintianed trail with my co adopter SilentCal and then usually one day dedicated to the short trail I have in the Belknaps.

Brian

Neil said:

Due to the wording of the of the 2nd sentence of the final choice as well as that of the pollster's opening post I can't help shake the impression that this poll is serving more as a venting and a finger pointing mechanism than a data gathering device.

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I felt the same way. I can sympathize with the many people that feel they don't have the time to do trail maintenance. To them this poll could feel like an attack borne out of frustration.

I do believe that those of us who recreate in the woods and mountains bear a certain responsibility for preserving and protecting these assets. Maybe we aren't able to set aside the time to do trail work, but that doesn't mean we can't contribute, that we can't give anything back. Joining and contributing to a club such as the the Forty-Sixers, the GMC, the RMC, the ADK, or the AMC does help. (If you're on this board and you're not a member of one of these groups then shame on you.)

That said, if we can help out for one day of trail maintenance, we can make a considerable contribution. Is it really that hard to sacrifice 1/365th of the year to give back? For those of us who spend a considerable amount of our time and passion in the woods, don't we owe at least that?

One full day a year. I've been doing trail work for quite a few years. I adopted 3.5 miles of the Smarts Brook Trail to the ridge. When I first adopted the trail it was two full days a year because of all overgrown vegetation that needed cutting back.

RollingRock said:

One full day a year. I've been doing trail work for quite a few years. I adopted 3.5 miles of the Smarts Brook Trail to the ridge. When I first adopted the trail it was two full days a year because of all overgrown vegetation that needed cutting back.

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I finally took that trail to the the ridge this past summer and was very impressed with your work. It looks great! Since I'm just about two miles away from the trailhead, just drop me a line the next time you go and I will help.

Back to the thread: I maintain the Webster Cliff trail and usually do about 5 trips a year, plus a winter trip to trim for winter travel.

Neil said:

Due to the wording of the of the 2nd sentence of the final choice as well as that of the pollster's opening post I can't help shake the impression that this poll is serving more as a venting and a finger pointing mechanism than a data gathering device.

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Finger Pointing and Rampant Judgementalism?

On VFTT?

Say it ain't so!

I would have answered the poll, but I am very busy working myself into a righteous frenzy with my upcoming post "Who Does Environmental Photography?".

I’m unclear if my total should include just the number of hours actually working on the trails, or if my total should also include the hours spent travelling to the trailhead by car, plus the number of hours spent hiking to get to the adopted trail.

Also, adding to my personal uncertainty is that the unit of measurement for the categories jumps from “hours” to “days”.

But anyway, assuming you’re defining “days” as an 8-hour day, and assuming you’re just talking about the number of hours actually spent working on your adopted trails, then I think I’d fit into the category of “more than 5 days annually”.

If any of my assumptions are incorrect, then my self-categorization is also incorrect!

Maybe you should count the hours you spend working to pay taxes and fees to government agencies that are supposed to be maintaining the trails. It's probably not much, becasue that part of government is usually starved for money, but I bet there are a couple hours there. But I think that money was all spent tearing down bridges...

With Steve Martin in 1998, I began maintaining the Glencliff Trail, which is part of the AT on the south side of Moosilauke, so we are into our 12th season. I spend on average three days per year on the trail (spring and fall branch clipping and water bar cleaning [we have 210 bars in 3 miles] and clipping branches one day in winter), usually topping out on the summit at least once per year, which is a bonus.

Steve puts in additional time responding to tree blow downs, usually as quickly as we learn about them through VftT trail condition reports and the like; he also has taken on trimming out the overgrown vegetation on the upper Carriage Road and in 2008 packed in many loads of the new wood steps on the Beaver Brook Trail, maintained by Cath Goodwin, which won him a DOC award.

We have enjoyed working for four different DOC "trail bosses" since 1998: Dave Hooke, Hunter Rieseberg, Julie Clemons, and now Jason Berard, who posts here.

This trail maintenance project has been one of my most rewarding experiences in the mountains, I have absolutely no regrets about the time that it has taken away from other outdoor endeavors, and I look forward to many more years of service.

Belknaps

Would you share which trail in the Belknaps you maintain?This is for N.H.

three hats for MATC

I do at least 2 days just for section walk-thru removing blowdowns and lopping - once in spring, once in fall and add additional days for other work like bog-bridging. This year 4 days on trail.

2 days for Spring/Fall trips to my Nesuntabunt register and
2 days for corridor monitoring.

add another two or three evenings for data entry and mailings.

If you need more weedkiller, let me know. Some of the in-laws can get the good stuff--commercial grade--wholesale.

I wonder what a statistically valid sample for polls is here ? With props to all those who do a lot of trail work, I'm having a hard time believing fully 70% of members here do more than 8 hours of trail work a year. If it's true, I think it's fantastic. If it's true, then I'm humbled. Am I just out of it or are these results suspicious to anyone else ?

Let's not limit the amount of good that an individual can do by picking up candy wrappers on the trail. Some of us do love our mountain trails and don't have the opportunity to take part in a scheduled maintenance time. Moving branches out of the way, kicking junk out of a clogged waterbar, cobbling up a fallen signpost, picking up pieces of trash (those annoying corners from bars and plastic labels from fruit are especially prevalent ) do add up into making a difference.

Chip said:

I wonder what a statistically valid sample for polls is here ? With props to all those who do a lot of trail work, I'm having a hard time believing fully 70% of members here do more than 8 hours of trail work a year. If it's true, I think it's fantastic. If it's true, then I'm humbled. Am I just out of it or are these results suspicious to anyone else ?

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Whaddaya want? Random sampling? Scientific polls? Margin of error? Linear regression?

Everyone knows that 72.8% of all stats are made up on the spot.

Puck said:

Whaddaya want? Linear regression?

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By the 6th decade of life 57.2% hikers who do not practice trail work more than 30 days per annum experience exponential regression.

Trail work, my thoughts:

I did trail work once with a group. It was organized by Hillwalker and Paradox was there I think...and I can't remember who else now, but a handful of folks. We were trying to make a patch of trail on the AT near Wentworth less muddy (this was a bunch of years ago). It involved a technique I think was called turnpiking? I don't really know exactly. All I know is that a group of us with shovels and buckets walked into a stream-y, sandy area not too far off the trail, proceeded to dig up gravel to fill our buckets from that little stream ecosystem to bring it back to the trail and dump it there to make a less muddy walkway for AT hikers. In my opinion, it absolutely and irrevocably changed/damaged that stream area just off the trail - with both our trampling down of the undergrowth, multiple trips back and forth and our digging up of the gravel from the stream bed. It wasn't just a little bit. It entirely altered the stream and surrounding area. I have thought about this "trail work" experience many, many times since I participated in it and it has never sat well with me.

It just didn't make sense. We seemed to be changing/ruining a nearby stream area in order to make a small section of trail less muddy. It seemed ecologically/environmentally absurd. If that's the kind of trailwork Hillwalker is talking about, I'm not very comfortable with it and don't want to take part.

Ever since then, I've had very little motivation to do trail maintenance. Maybe someday I'll try again on my own terms. For now, I'll keep my trailwork to picking up wrappers, walking through the mud instead of around it, hiking in a very small group as much as possible and donating money annually to GMC.

Just my five cents worth.