Another trail maintenance day on another day off from work to avoid a lot of people. This time I was armed with waterbar training, and I knew this would take up a lot of my day. Armed with a drain spade, an axe, a Sandvik bush axe, a folding bow saw, loppers, shears, and 3 quarts of water for a warm day, I was loaded. Heavily, heavily loaded.
I took mental note of the amount of brushing needed on the way up. Some but not too bad. Right away I got my first argh moment. Someone had completely disassembled a bootleg shortcut that I had brushed in. What the hell? I redid my job here, we'll see if it lasts. After the turn off the logging road, a tree was partially laying in the trail. Off to some axe work. I'm used to splitting wood, not chopping it, but it short enough time, pieces were flying away. Then I came to the 3 blowdowns I had a heads up on. Ugh. They were above the trail and fairly large. Hmmm, not chancing this. They said if there's any doubt, let the pro crew handle it. I had plenty of doubts. Sorry guys, but at least it was near the trailhead.
I got to work on the waterbars, making slow forward progress, and they were only more filled up. A number were completely filled, making for some tiring work. Well, this would be the worst of it, as I continued to bring this trail from orphaned status with minimal maintenance to fully maintained. I finally made it to the first view ledge for a much needed rest. The views were decent today, better than the cloudy weekend we just had.
I carried on and up the steep slope in the red pine section, and came out in the ledgey brushy section I so love. If I didn't have to brush it. I was here in late fall, but I see it needed still more work. This is tedious work, and I was not looking forward to it. Oh well, brushing was for the way down. Ledges mean no waterbars, so I just cleaned out some muddy drainages and enjoyed the rest of the trip up, meeting a couple of groups hiking up. Of course, about 10 feet from the junction lay a blowdown, so back to work. I tried dragging it, which worked for 6” of the 15 feet I needed, so I chopped off the top and away it went.
Now it was break time at the summit. Franconia Ridge was in the clear, I studied Clough once again for a future whack, and I took a wild shot at Moosilauke to see if the super zoom show off shot would show the cairns.
That would be a yes. :*) Finishing quart #2 of water, it was time to head down. The usual brushing up top before the ledge, and then came out my new Sandvik at the ledges. I was hoping this bad boy would make easy work of the brush. Nope. Barely touched it. It's for heavier brush. Argh. OK, shears time. Snip snip snip. Repeat. Go down the trail lay tools down, walk up one side, snip, snip, down the other, snip, snip. Repeat ad nauseum. I may need to get more aggressive on this. On and on. Time for water. Uh oh. I lost my last quart somewhere way above me. It was now downright hot in the sun, and I couldn't risk expending energy to try to find the water. OK, I'd continue down and see how long that lasts. I made it to the end of the red pines (where there's thankfully never any brushing to be done), and I was dry as a bone and hot. I had to get out. Any major issues were taken care of, but the remainder would have to wait for the next time up.
I got to the car and downed half a quart of Gatorade I had in there and blasted the A/C. Not the most fun day, but I have a trail with plenty of views, and it always feels good to help out.
