Windblown XC Center New Ipswich NH Update 12/20/08

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Jazzbo

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Waltham, MA Jazzbo & Marty meet Bigfoot on Kenne
After shoveling my driveway and neighbors and stuff, I got underway and made it up to Windblown XC about 1:00 or so. I hadn't seen much of the ice storm from Waltham. The extensive mish-mash that was happening out in the woods and along roadsides was pretty impressive even a week after the event. I saw a fleet of those service trucks parked in New Ipswich and here and there along the roads.

I parked in Windblown's parking lot and walked over to the ladge. There wasn't any lights on, but small crew of folks were out and about working. At first I was fired up to get out and clear trails, but magnitude of damage is way out of the league of ordinary trail maintenance and requires talents of true chain saw and woodland worker professionals. The large number of downed, tangled blowdown patches, and leaning trees require highly skilled woods workers who know how to deal with this sort of thing. There doesn't really seem to be a lot that volunteers can really do to help, but if Al thinks of something he'll post it on the Windblown website. It's not easy updating his website as he has to drive to Peterboro to get on line.

One unexpected benefit of the downturn in real estate markets is that the manager will be able to contract with forestry company that does woodlands work normally engaged in clearing for real estate site developments. Apparently this 5 man crew has some sort of enormous lopper and chipper and will shortly begin clearing trails bit by bit. Thankfully the machinery includes a chipper that will be able to convert the wood waste into burnable fuel for use in local wood waste power plants. There will be opportunities for volunteers who want help Windblown. Al will post events and such on his website. Check the Windblown website for updates.

For example I was able to make myself useful. Al had a huge pile of tree debris he was trying to burn. I was able to tend it and nurse it along and was able to get it burning good and continued to keep feeding the non-burning stuff into the heart of the fire until it was pretty much burned. This freed him to attend to other business and would enable him to open up the bunny slope next to the lodge on Sunday. He has another big pile nearby he's thinking of burning in the near future possibly as part of New Years bonfire/ski event.

After sharing some tea with them, I donned my snowshoes and went snowshoing to survey some of the damage on the trails. Unfortunately it was getting dark so I left the camera in the car. I snowshoed a mile or two out to Porcupine Hollow located in a valley almost at base of Barrett Mt 1883' elevation. The trail was repeatedly blocked by blowdown patches some of which I bypassed around or threaded my way though. By this time it was 90% dark and I could no longer read the map without aid of light . I turned around and retraced my tracks back to the warming hut. Now it was 100% dark and snowing. I don't think Al has put trail signs up yet so large number of trails, darkness, and snowfall was very confusing. I was LOST!

The headlight didn't help much. It only lit up the immediate area, but the snowflakes did glitter prettily in the light. Time to get out the compass! I headed north on a packed trail bypassing or threading though more blowdown patches. I reached another major intersection where I figured I ought to head easterly bearing that would take me back to the lodge. After 15 minutes or so I spotted the lodge and my bonfire which was still burning. That felt good. An unexpected exercise in successful use of map and compass!

Before long I was on the highway heading back home to Waltham where everyone has electricity and hearty supper. My condolences go out to those folks still without power.
 
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