first week of rock work

We just got down from our first week of rock work on the Israel Ridge Trail, building and repairing stone staircases and drainages. Four of us were camped several miles in, up by the first cascade. It was a pretty wet week, and at times the work moved slowly as we all remembered and learned how to work with rock, but it was still a lot of fun. Here’s something I wrote on Thursday night after the we made dinner and watched the sun set from on the rock by the cascade. I just meant to put down a few quick thoughts my my journal but I just kept writing…

——–

Benzo’s been reading Ed Abbey’s Desert Solitaire aloud in the evenings. It’s great writing, and one of the few books which I’d like to own a copy of, even after having read it once. I wish I could describe trail crew and the White Mountains as eloquently as Abbey describes the Southwest, and with as much detail.

Some moments are easier to describe; I know how to start with the sunset or a clearing rainstorm. Those moments of peace after a day of work, like bathing in a stream or watching clouds blow by overhead are a big part of what keeps me coming back year after year.

But it’s also about the chapped hands and the dirt that never quite washes of all summer and the blisters that form on top of blisters. I guess you sort of start to take pride in that stuff. And the rank, moldy smell when you open your backpack after it’s rained for a week straight? That’s part of it. And getting mud in your food, having gas from eating 3,500 calories a day, telling dirty jokes, cussing at that rock that just won’t go where you want it to… it’s all inseparable from the experience. And in a certain sense, it’s all beautiful. But it sure is hard to make that make sense to people if they’ve never worked up here.  I wish I could describe it all in detail in a way that would make sense, but it just wouldn’t translate.

Sometimes it’s hard to say what it is that keeps me coming back here. (3 summers with the RMC and two before that, first as a volunteer with AMC and then with the Student Conservation Association.) Even as it becomes clear to me that the tendinitis in my wrists is getting worse and even as I find myself shopping for things like knee braces and ibuprofen with increasing frequency, I whole-heartedly feel like it’s worth it.

Undoubtedly, a big part of it is the awesome people I’ve worked with. Part of it is the intense satisfaction that comes from doing physical labor, especially when you know that some of your work will last 40, 50, or maybe even 100 years. (How cool is it to think that we’ll probably be able to show our grandkids the staircases and waterbars we built?) Certainly this place is beautiful, with its sunsets and fog and waterfalls and lichen-covered cliffs and the tiny water droplets on the needles of spruce trees after it rains.

Every year, these mountains feel more and more like home to me. Today while looking my copy of the RMC map, I realized that I know almost every mile of trail on the map and I can picture nearly every section in my head. I’m learning more and more of the trees around here. Spruce, hemlock, silver birch, and the mountain ash which has big clusters of white flowers this time of year.

But there’s still something more; something that’s harder to put a finger on. It’s in the bright undercast mornings above tree line and the lights of Route 2 as seen from the Quay at twilight just as much as it’s in the sweaty, desperate moment when you finally find that perfect rock where you can rest your packboard without toppling over, or when the last step in that staircase clunks perfectly into place.

I guess that despite all of the hours at work spent daydreaming about delicious food, friends from home, and dry clothes, it’s all worth it for the times when I’m consciously aware that in that moment there is nowhere, absolutely no place in the entire world where I’d rather be. Those are the moments that keep me coming back.

And I hope I never regret it. I hope that in 20, 30, 40 years as I get older and (prematurely) arthritic I’ll still look back fondly on these memories and I hope that my double bit axe and my Limmers will still be among my most valued possessions.

-Ben

To the hills (again)!

The tradition of the Trail Crew is almost as old as the Randolph Mountain Club itself. Since 1910, people have been employed to perform maintenance tasks on the trails, and since then there has almost always been a paid position for trail workers who work to preserve some of the country’s oldest and most dear paths and trails.

 

Currently, the Trail Crew consists of eight strapping young men and woman and a wise veteran of the RMC serving as their crew leader. When they’re not cooling their heels by Cold Brook, sharpening axes and caring for other tools in the Goetze Workshop, or cooking meals in the luxurious Stearns Lodge, they can be found on the trails.

 

Summer Trail Crew season starts in early June with a brief orientation where they’re brought up to speed by some of the best in the business. Axe skills are honed by Cristin Bailey, a Trails Manager with the USFS, and the crew is given a taste of backcountry physics a la the Grip-Hoist by David Salisbury, writer of one of the definitive books on trail maintenance, by the end of their first week the RMC TC are a walking (er, hiking) encyclopedia of woodland ethics and trail work knowledge.

 

When orientation is over, the real work begins with patrolling. RMC trails befall all sorts of minor damages during the winter, notably blowdowns (trees and other obstructions of the treadway) and clogged drainages. During the patrolling period, the TC will hike every single RMC trail with axes, chainsaws, hoes and picks, clearing blowdowns and cleaning drainages. In other words, they try to make every trail fully functional and easily accessible by hikers. Patrolling is also useful because it gives TC members a lay of the land a taste of all of the trails. Increased familiarity means increased connection to the land, and increased devotion to the tasks at hand.

 

After the blowdowns have been cleared and the winter melt siphoned off of the treadways into freshly cleaned drainages, the TC transitions to their longer-term construction and renovation projects. RMC members eager for a look at recent TC works are advised to take a look at the newly-constructed trailhead on the Ledge Trail, as well as the stone staircase towards the top of Lowe’s Path near the Log Cabin, both of which were finished last year.

 

Construction projects this year include completing work from last year on Israel Ridge and a large-scale project on Inlook trail. Through these projects, the TC’s aim, as always, is to maintain and improve trails so that they will be able to accommodate hikers, and to preserve the integrity of the forests which they are located in.

 

If you see the crew on the trails, feel free to introduce yourself and say hello. The crew is friendly (although they may look dirty and surly), and interested in helping out where possible. Members and town residents are reminded that the Stearns Lodge is a private residence for the Crew, although there will be several events held there throughout the summer that are open to the public.

 

This blog will be updated regularly by Benzo Harris, a second-year TC member, as well as other TC members. Please check back regularly for updates on the Crew’s activities and for information on upcoming events.

Abode to Path Crew

Summer begins by patrolling for blowdowns,

Axe or saw, these trees we chop

So hikers can hop rock to rock without stop.

Shortly thereafter drainages must be clear.

Leaves and mud pushed to the side

So water may pass the trail with easy glide.

Digging for rocks, the hillsides fill with holes

To construct staircase and bar

On Ledge Trail and Israel Ridge, near or far.

Heavy loads drench our clothes and break our backs

Packboarding firewood and hiking up tools,

Randolphians ‘ought know, we are the new mules.

-Summer 2008-

c.p.

Packboarding, Lowe’s Path and New Arrivals.

The week started off with the whole crew at the Log Cabin, doing work on Lowe’s Path right below the cabin, placing rock steps on a steep section of the path. On Wednesday, half of the crew will be back down at the lodge continuing work on the Ledge trail. As there is only one more week in the season left, the crew are scrambling to finish thier projects.

Work has hit a nice steady pace in the weeks after the crew’s midsummer break. On the first day back the crew packboarded firewood up to Grey Knob for the winter caretaker- a physically strenuous process that took the crew a day and a half. After packboarding, the crew was split between construction and maintenance on Israel Ridge and Ledge trails.

Monday night marked the third annual Craig Wok- where trail crew, caretakers and a few members of the board enjoy takeout Chinese food and the fantastic view from Craig Camp. Originally started as a way to both thank the caretakers and serve as an exit interview, this year the trail crew joined in as well, celebrating the arrival (and birthday) of Rachel Biggs. Happy birthday, Rachel!

Hungry caretakers, trail crew members and friends line up at the buffet at Craig Camp

Firewood, July 28-29

One of the many cool things about RMC’s camps is that they’re are open year round. Even through the winter months, there is always a caretaker at the Grey Knob cabin, to greet visitors and keep everything up and running. However, if you’ve ever hiked in the White Mountains during the winter, you know that it gets pretty darn cold, especially up at 4370 feet. The cabin does have a wood stove, but if you look around outside Grey Knob, there’s not much good firewood to be found, just a lot of the scrappy little fir trees that are able to grow at that height. Even if the Forest Service did allow firewood to be cut near the cabin (they don’t within 1/4 mile of shelters) it would take an awful lot of those little trees to heat the cabin, it would only take a few years of cutting to destroy the surrounding area. Behind the cabin is a small woodshed, stocked with enough birch logs to at least get the cabin above freezing on particularly cold nights. But where does the wood come from?

Last week, we took a few days off from our projects on Isreal Ridge and Ledge trail to pack some of that firewood up. Just off the Hincks trail, just half a mile bellow the cabin, there start to be some birches mixed into the firs. After collectively hiking that half mile of trail 50 or 60 odd times, carrying over a ton and a half in total, I think just about all of us on crew (and plus the two caretakers) can agree that that half mile feels like the longest half mile in the world.

The packboard is a White Mountain invention that hasn’t changed much since (if I remember correctly) the 1920’s. They’re a a simple wooden backpack frame with nothing but a canvas corset and a pair of leather straps. While they’re far from comfortable, packboards are still the bast way to carry heavy and akward loads, like firewood and trail tools. After firelining the freshly cut logs out to the trail, we each took a few and tied them onto our packboards as tightly as possible. One of the funniest things is watching somone struggling to stand up after slipping into the leather shoulder straps. With all of the weight over your head, it’s difficult to balance, and you have to walk slowly, concentrating on every step to make sure you don’t fall.

While packboarding is not an enviable task, it is enjoyable in its own way. The relief experienced upon seeing Grey Knob and knowing you’ll soon be able to take a short rest before heading down for more, or perhaps the satisfaction of watching the woodpile slowly grow larger and larger, knowing that it was carried there by you and your fellow crew members. As has been said before, trail work is not easy and is often physically demanding- packboarding is a staple of the trail crew experience and work wouldn’t be the same without it.

Behind the Scenes

These days, there’s plenty of work behind the scenes, when it comes to trail work. This past Sunday, Irene Garvey and I hiked Ledge Trail and Pasture Path, in preparation for filing the necessary wetlands application with New Hampshire’s Departments of Environmental Services. Irene GPS’ed the location of river crossing and any wetlands. We noted the work we’d be doing in those locations, and made sure they met NH’s Best Management Practices. Together with permission letters from landowners, USGS maps and some other supporting materials, we’ll file the paperwork shortly. That’ll allow us to work in specific locations, such as the stream crossings– and to get to work on a new trail relocation coming soon, to the bottom of Ledge Trail.

– Doug Mayer, RMC Trails Co-Chair

Ledge Trail, July 10th

 

Duncan Lennon and Corey Paradis walk over a new rock drainage with step stones

Each year, RMC undertakes one erosion control project on the more wild, remote trails– and one closer to home, often to one of the scenic spots around our mountain town. This year, that project is the Ledge Trail and Pasture Path, two trails that head towards Lookout Ledge. Eighty percent of the cost of the project is funded by the State of New Hampshire’s Recreation Trails Program. 

So far, just a few hundred yards of trail have been worked on… but there’s a ton of work in that stretch! The lower section of Ledge Trail traverses some very wet areas, so there’s plenty of drainage work to be done.

Benzo Harris and Curtis Moore review work

Those rock waterbars you see on trails? What you’re seeing is just the tip of the iceberg. The rocks need to be mostly buried, to be stable over years of use and minimize shifting due to frost action, water, and hiker traffic.

Here, Field Supervisor Curtis Moore comes out to inspect work. Note the cable in the foreground– a Grip Hoist was used to move some of these rocks, from nearby rock quarries into the trail, where they can be used for rock waterbars, step stones and staircases.

Doing trail work definitely means getting down and dirty. In the photo below, Jake Deslauriers becomes one with the mud, as he constructs a rock waterbar.

Jake Deslauriers digs out around a rock

Israel Ridge, July 8th

 

On one of the hottest and most humid days of the year, RMC President Jamie Maddock and I decided to go for a trail run, and visit the crew on Israel Ridge Path. We ran up Castle Trail, then Israel Ridge which, for those of you who know the trail, is pretty hard to run.. so we settled for a fast hike.

 

Amid the black flies, RMC trail crew takes time for lunch

 

 

The crew was doing well! In just a week or so of work, they were already closing in on the junction of Israel Ridge Path and Perch Path. (We usually start our trail work projects high, and work down the trail, though not always.

This project is a partnership with the US Forest Service, since the land is on the White Mountain National Forest. In this case, the WMNF is able to reimburse about 50% of the cost of the project, though what’s known as a Challenge Cost Share contract.

RMC TC Ben Lieberson working on a new rock waterbar

 

 

The work was going really well! From my point of view, you never know how quickly first year crew members will pick up the intricacies of rock work. But, in this case, Gretchen and Chris have it well figured out. (Both were caretakers with RMC last year, by the way.) Fiona has previous trails experience with AMC at Camp Dodge, and this is Ben’s second year on the RMC crew.

One of the most important skills, is learning to rest on your shovel. Okay…. I’m kidding. Here’s RMC President Jamie Maddock, showing Fiona Jensen exactly how a state highway employee would do it!

 

Who knew our RMC President was so talented?

July- Rockwork

With half the crew up on Israel Ridge (expect an update from them this weekend) things have become very quiet around the lodge and on the worksite only a short walk up from our tents. Rockwork, that is, the art of rolling and setting large chunks of granite that more often than not has a mind of its own, is both deceptively simple and maddeningly complex. Using little more than an 18-pound rock bar, a pick mattock, a shovel and ones own two hands, very elaborate and sturdy creations are fashioned.

The two main items on the list are water bars and staircases. Water bars channel water runoff in the forms of the spring thaws and the summer storms off of the trail, and staircases are more or less self explanatory. We also redefine paths by setting stones and filling in eroded or under-defined areas with quarried mineral soil. Anything on the trails that needs to get done, chances are we can and have done it, most often with our own (gloved) hands and a few tools.

Naturally in this technological age, we cheat sometimes. Enter the Grip Hoist. A small but delightful contraption, the Grip Hoist is a kind of hand-operated winch that, in conjunction with any number of pulleys, slings, cables and shackles, can rip boulders weighing up to a ton (and with some elbow grease and the use of physics stones even mightier than that) out of the earth, to be slung through the air to where the crew is trying to place them. It’s a very versatile tool that has many uses.

“It might take you two hours to quarry a rock with the grippy,” Curtis, our field supervisor told me. “But you can set it in an hour. Saves you time in the long run.”

Technology and all manner of tools aside, the finished result is breathtaking to the trained eye. One thing that few people know is that we construct trails not for hikers, but to protect the woodland environment. Stone staircases, set by hand and only the simple tools we pack in, are not to make climbing easier- they help keep feet where they are least destructive. A rock water bar, made of sunken rocks that can take one worker all day just to quarry (an infuriatingly lengthy process I have learned first hand), doesn’t just keep the trails dry and our feet wet- it mitigates erosion so that the trail we all love stay the way they are and people don’t try to make their own, damaging more of the forest.

As well as being important, this is work that lasts. Each stone takes time to set, and must be done perfectly.

“The idea is that an 800 pound guy could jump on it and it wouldn’t move,” says Ben, a second year trail crew member says. “But a 150 pound kid with a rock bar can.”

We build these simple things to withstand the hundreds and thousands of feet that will cross over them, the gallons of water that will rush by, the freezes of winter and the thaws of spring. I am reminded of the carriage roads in Acadia National Park, build during and before the Depression. Funded in part by Rockerfeller, the crews averaged only two miles of road a year. Still, they are just beginning to need basic maintenance now. Do it right the first time, and the problem may never have to be dealt with again.

- Benzo

Patroling

Patrolling isn’t that hard. An eight hour day of hiking the trails and either clearing blowdown trees with ax or chainsaw, or grubbing out ditches with a hoe generally gets old pretty quick. So you would think. Spending that much time with one other person (we go out in pairs each day) leads to endless interesting talk. One day firefighting is discussed. The next, the classic film The Big Lebowski. Still another, religion and most of its intricacies. Oh yeah, we do some work too.

Blowdowns can range from a few saplings to be worked through with clippers (affectionately called clippies), old birch that an ax can handle, or a hundred-year old beech that a chainsaw must tackle. Once the tree is chopped into manageable sizes, they are thrown off the trail, and hikers can continue through unhindered by logs in their path.

As simple as it sounds, this is a very important job. For one, it lets the new crew members get acquainted with the trail, and gets them into shape (although they should all be, I was certainly out of breath on more than a few hikes). Also, when encountered with a blowdown, many hikers just beat their own path around. When a harmless bushwhack becomes a bootleg trail that’s hard to distinguish from the actual path, erosion and other damages can occur.

There’s only eight of us and over a hundred miles of trail, but we cover almost all of it in a few weeks, cleaning drainages and cutting away fallen trees. There’s nothing like swinging an ax and cutting through your first blowdown, or running up a section of Owls Head, eager to hit the next drainage. And of course, what my crew mate told me as we lunched up on Castle Ridge still rings true as ever:

“Can you believe we get paid to do this?”

- Benzo