North Country Trail Workday

There are many trails in this area, but a significant one that runs through the Allegheny National Forest is a section of the North Country Trail. This 4,800 mile runs from North Dakota to Vermont. About 95 miles of it goes through the Allegheny National Forest which is my "home territory."

Along the North Country Trail, there are associations which work to maintain the trail. They also organize events like my favorite Allegheny 100 Challenge. This year's Allegheny 100 Challenge runs from June 6th until June 8th, and it'll be my 5th year participating. 

What I have not been able to do thus far in all of my hiking adventures is participate in a trail workday. Trail workdays are planned by the association responsible for this section of the trail, generally two per month. Although I have been aware of many of them, this weekend was the first chance I had to get out there and give back to the trail that I love so much.

Volunteers were told through a Facebook event post to meet at 10:00 a.m.at the Red Bridge Trailhead at the southern end of the Kinzua Reservoir. I pulled up to the parking lot to meet more than a dozen other volunteers who welcomed me to their group. We caravanned in 4WD vehicles via a service road up to a spot that was close to where the work was needed. My little Nissan Sentra had to stay behind, and I rode with another volunteer.

I sent this picture to Ed (my husband)
right before we headed up to the work site.

The plan for the workday for the team I was part of was to work on two re-routes of the trail. The first re-route was to create a by-pass for a very steep section of the trail by creating some zig-zags in the trail that are called switchbacks. The second was because after a survey by the Forestry Service, it was found that a small portion of the trail was on the wrong side of a property line. 

I worked on the re-route for the steep hill. To start the re-route, organizers had gone in the previous day and posted pink flags to mark where the new trail should go. It was interesting to learn that it had to stay within 50 feet of the original trail in order not to require a study assessing any broader effects of the re-route. Next, one of the volunteers went through with a leaf blower to remove the top layer of leaves and debris. The next part, generally speaking, was to make the trail as nice to walk on as possible by cutting away branches, trimming back roots that could possibly be trip hazards, and to make the tread as level as possible. This involved several different kinds of work and tools including bringing bucks of soil over to fill low spots, shifting rocks to more stable spots, etc. 

In total, we worked for about three hours with a break for lunch in the middle. It was a really fascinating experience, and I look forward to going to my next one! Although this wasn't an official hike, I did accomplish a lot of hiking and hard work! My step count was 16,347.

The following picture was taken by Tina O'Toole, who is one of the association's primary leaders. You can find more on the group's Facebook page.