Trail Maintenance, Garenflo Gap to Bluff Mountain, Appalachian Trail

Date	Distance	Time	Elevation Gain	Average Moving Time	Year to Date Miles
5/27/2022	8 miles	5 hours 14 minutes	1,968'	2.0	427.7

Parking: 

• Garenflo Gap

Maps:

• n/a

Directions:

• n/a

Glen and I maintain this section of the Appalachian Trail. We've been out a few times earlier this year to do winter clean up. But we haven't been out for a couple of months, as we were waiting to go out when a trail crew joined us. After a few failed attempts (due to weather), the Friday trail crew was able to join us today to help on our section. We were really happy about this, because there were some tasks we can't do, and some tasks we didn't know how to do. My company lets me take 12 hours off for volunteer work, so I used some of those hours today.

First up, a sawyer came out and worked on tree removal. Carrying a chain saw, gas, etc., up a mountain is hard work. Glen and I decided to do some scouting while everyone else was busy working. We now realize we shouldn't have waited to go out with the group. We should have tried to go out shortly before the group went out. There were new blowdowns completely blocking the trail. We really needed to scout the trail, so we could prioritize what got worked on. We didn't want the sawyer to have to hike all the way to the summit, it the worst trees weren't that high. So the sawyer got rid of the worst blowdowns, but there are still more left for another trip.

Besides getting a sawyer out there, our main focus was getting help with water diversions. Today was a perfect day for that. We've had a lot of rain this week, so it would be easy to see the water issues and identify where the water was coming from. We have at least 5 stream crossings/wet areas on our section, where the water was just coming down the mountain, and then flowing down our trail. Water on a trail is a bad thing. We didn't know how to address the water issues, so we got some help & lessons today. It was a muddy job trying to divert the water. The mud was thick and stuck to our boots. Trying to move soil with a hazel hoe, I felt like I was just splashing water all over myself. But in the end, the water started to drain off the trail. It was hard to work with the muddy soil, so we'll have to see how things look when the trail dries out a bit. I think in the future, we'll be a little more equipped to try to fix the water issues ourselves.

Another thing I'm going to work on next time we go out, is creating a list of landmarks & their mileages from the summit. That will make it easier for us to describe & remember where the issues are.