Jazzbo
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With all the great trip reports about Mount Cardigan I thought I'd put up a plug for Cardigan Volunteer Trail Crew. We had one of our annual spring trail work weekends the weekend of 5/5-5/6. The most popular trails on Cardigan see a lot of traffic and require a lot of attention to protect them from all that loving. On Saturday five trail crews worked to get trails in shape for the spring hiking season cleaning 100's of water bars, clearing blow-downs, and various construction activities. The Trail Master (Creag Nan Drochaid) on this site can give exact numbers of all the work that got done. We also put in a half day on Sunday. The CVTC manages the trails on east side of Mount Cardigan. The CVTC is a unit of AMC and has been around for years. It originally started very long time ago back when Cardigan Lodge was completely volunteer managed. When Cardigan Lodge went professional, the trail crew continued on. We have tool shed and trail master and crew leaders of which I am one. We do more than just level 1 maintenance. You can learn a lot about trail management and construction working with us. We built our own tool shed and re-built the Croo Bridge. We're always looking for help!
For example my crew cleaned about 50 drains on upper Clark Trail. We made our way down to the lower Clark Trail, cleared some blow-downs, and constructed 4 log steps. Here is section of trail with drainage ditches running down both sides that we cleaned.
Another drain cleaned a bit further down.
Drain cleaning was hard this weekend. The leaves were soggy from recent rains. Thankfully we got to do some construction work down on the lower Clark.
Now the fun stuff ... a series of photos illustrating building log steps. A steep section of trail needs log steps to counter erosion. We use straps to carry the log up to the ditch we just dug.
We install the log to check the fit several times.
They make good seats too! Sarah, Dave, Ben, and Mimi sit to admire the work. Quite a productive day! We installed four steps in a relatively short amount of time. What a great crew!
Final view from up the trail. We quarried mineral soil from a blow-down to back fill behind the new steps.
For example my crew cleaned about 50 drains on upper Clark Trail. We made our way down to the lower Clark Trail, cleared some blow-downs, and constructed 4 log steps. Here is section of trail with drainage ditches running down both sides that we cleaned.
Another drain cleaned a bit further down.
Drain cleaning was hard this weekend. The leaves were soggy from recent rains. Thankfully we got to do some construction work down on the lower Clark.
Now the fun stuff ... a series of photos illustrating building log steps. A steep section of trail needs log steps to counter erosion. We use straps to carry the log up to the ditch we just dug.
We install the log to check the fit several times.
They make good seats too! Sarah, Dave, Ben, and Mimi sit to admire the work. Quite a productive day! We installed four steps in a relatively short amount of time. What a great crew!
Final view from up the trail. We quarried mineral soil from a blow-down to back fill behind the new steps.
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