Roadtripper, you asked for feedback on tools. Here are some insights from Cardigan Highlanders Volunteer Trail Crew:
We brush trails and cut blowdowns with hand pruners, loppers, folding pruning saws, and 3' bow saws. On Spring patrol, everyone carries hand pruners to trim back young growth and train the plant to grow away from the trail. This works really well on hobble bush because you can see the stems before the leaves grow out. We also brush our trails after the leaves fall for the same reason. Folding pruning saws are much easier and safer to carry than small bow saws. We guard the blades of 3' bow saws with PVC pipe until we reach our work area.
We use hazel hoes only for grubbing out sidehill trail, which is seldom. We clean waterbars thusly: brush out the area over the outflow ditch with loppers, if needed. Clear away all the dry leaves with a 2' plastic leaf rake ($5.50 Ocean State Job Lots). If needed, loosen packed gravel and rock with a 2.5 lb. pick mattock ($22 Home Depot). Our main tool is a sharp long-handle shovel ($10 for a wood-handle one at a discount store. It is a shovel for throwing loose soil, not a prybar, RIGHT?). Starting at the downstream end of the ditch, we slide the shovel along the bottom of the ditch back towards the trail and throw each shovelful of mineral soil further upstream until we can throw it onto the trail tread just downhill of the waterbar. Using the shovel this way leaves a clean ditch with no dams, and the bottom is round to speed the water downstream. Once a ditch is dug 2' wide and 1' deep and the resulting strip of turf used as the berm on its downhill bank, we do not smother the plants on that berm with mineral soil from the ditch by hoeing its contents onto the berm. That mineral soil ends up back where it belongs, on the trail tread where hikers will pack it into a hard surface that resists erosion.
