We held our first trail care event of the year at Harold Parker State Forest today. The weather was much better than expected. A little damp & misty but no significant rain. We had a very good turnout, twenty or so volunteers, especially considering the gloomy forecast. Quite a few North Shore members showed up along with a number of individuals from The Andover Trails Committee.
The plan was to do some work along the Bay Circuit Trail where it crosses Jenkins Rd. A large boardwalk was constructed on the east side of Jenkins where recent beaver activity had flooded the trail. Some of the NS members helped haul lumber from Jenkins Road to the work site. However, the ATC members took responsibility for building this large boardwalk. While most of the ATC members built the large boardwalk, everyone else headed over to the west side of Jenkins to build a smaller plank boardwalk, close down an old trail, and perform some routine drainage work.
Last September, NS NEMBA rerouted the trail heading west from Jenkins towards the glacial erratic (Details of this Project). During the September project, we closed down a portion of the original trail that went through a large pit. However, we left open the remainder of the original trail. Today, some of the volunteers spent time closing down the original trail. Also, along the September reroute is an intersection for a trail that heads towards Skug Reservation. The very beginning of this Skug Reservation Trail can be very muddy, so a short plank boardwalk was built over this muddy section.
The planned work for the west side was wrapped up very quickly today. So once completed, we checked on the progress of the large boardwalk and then headed back to the Jenkins parking lot to perform some routine work on the Root Ball trail. This is the trail that begins just beyond the open area near the parking lot.
Our next trail day is on April 25th and will also take place at Harold Parker. Details
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- Large boardwalk area.
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- Exposed roots from beaver flooding.
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- Beaver flooded area.
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- Large boardwalk before.
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- Large boardwalk before.
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- Frank
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- Short boardwalk work crew.
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- Closing glacial erratic trail.
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- Short plank boardwalk heading towards Skug Reservation.
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- Start of large boardwalk.
