LT Trailwork, West River Trail, and Black Mountain

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Joined
Jan 15, 2013
Messages
151
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19
Location
Vernon, Conn.
This past weekend I joined a trail crew on the Long Trail / Appalachian Trail. Before I returned home I hiked a section of the West River Trail and tacked on an ascent of Black Mountain in Dummerston, Vermont.

The Connecticut Section of the GMC is responsible for the Long Trail (which is also the AT there) between Glastenbury Tower and Kelly Stand Road. Because of the pandemic, this was the first trail maintenance trip we'd made since 2019. Fortunately, a large group showed up, so there was actually more workers than work needed to be done. We were based at Story Spring Shelter this time. I arrived Friday, to find that people who had arrived Thursday had dome much of the work. On Saturday I nonetheless traveled north to KS Road with a lopper in hand, lopping the occasional branch/hobblebush they'd missed. When I was almost to the road I decided to check out the big pile of dirt you can see from there. Well, it turned out not to be a big pile of dirt; it's a big pile of sawdust, about 100' wide with no road leading up to it. I later heard that it's from a long gone sawmill in the area.

The rest of the crew left Saturday, but I hung around until Sunday, since I wanted to hike my last section of the West River Trail. The WRT follows the West River from Londonderry to Brattleboro. It's in several sections, and I'd done all but the downstreammost one. (I'm not going to do the road walks between sections.) This section starts at the Marina in Brattleboro almost at the mouth of the river, and goes 3.5 miles up an extremely flat former railroad bed. The end of this section is also the trailhead for the Black Mountain Trails. I hiked up the mountain and back down before returning on the WRT. Black Mountain rises 980 feet in 1.4 miles, so not so hard, but steep in parts. There was a view of Monadnock up there, and a nice breeze.

Although the black flies were out in force on the LT, there were none at all on the WRT, and only a few up on Black Mtn.

Here are the pictures:

http://www.cookhimes.us/dennis/traillog/20210521/20210521000.htm

--

Cumulus

NE111 in my 50s: 115/115 (67/67, 46/46, 2/2)
NE111 in my 60s: 76/115 (53/67, 21/46, 2/2)
NEFF: 50/50; Cat35: 39/39; WNH4K: 41/48; NEHH 89/100
LT NB 2009; CT NB 2017

"I don't much care where [I get to] --" said Alice, "-- so long as I get somewhere," ...
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
- Lewis Carroll
 
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