June Hoodlums – Will The Weed Growing Season Ever Stop?
Tom Moran
June continued a run of excellent weather for Hoodlums Saturday, drawing a mix of veterans and first-timers, 22 in all. Head Hoodlum Tom Troutman reminded the volunteers that it is high season for many of the park’s diverse fauna that pose risk to those venturing into the backcountry, but none were deterred and the mood was spirited. But as the crews would find out, it was the flora—vegetation exploding growth and clogging trails—that would pose the greatest challenge to keeping trails open and passable for hikers. The safety briefing concluded, crews formed and set off to accomplish their tasks for the day.
Marie Seymour led a mostly veteran crew to the Pass Mountain Hut, where they worked downhill clearing vegetation and one 10” blowdown for a little variety. The Pass Mountain Trail they worked presents challenges—it is convenient to Rt. 211 in two places so attracts a lot of hikers but has many places open to full sun which fuels vine growth. The vines then pull trees down, and all of this must be dealt with in order to keep the trail passable. At least one, if not several return trips will be needed to complete the effort. Michael Gergely, Venus Foshay, and Meghan O’Leary rounded out the crew.
One of SNP’s North District AT section maintainers has been on a long-term work assignment for many months, so Dan Hippe led a crew to the section, south of Elkwallow Wayside, to get caught up on routine maintenance. In summer this primarily means cutting excessive vegetation back from the trail, removing invasive plants and in some cases refurbishing water control structures. They took frequent pauses to allow a stream of AT thru-hikers to pass by. Dan’s crew included Richard Lee, Connor Moynihan, Rosemary Seymour, and Mike Kennedy.
Upper Piney Ridge trail is another trail segment that has been under-maintained, in this case a new maintainer had just been assigned to fill a vacancy, but it was a priority to have a crew help to get the situation to a point where the maintainer could keep up. This trail gets a lot of vegetation, including stout vines, briers, and poison ivy. The large crew of eight were divided into two sub-groups of four, one led by Mark Wrobel, the other by Tom Moran. The crews separated and worked their way downhill, using an assortment of tools to cut back the vegetation and clearing four blowdowns as they proceeded. By the time it was necessary to turn around, they had fully cleared 80% of the 2-mile section. Brian Blackman, Kevin McArdle, Lauren Deaver, Brendan Meyer, Cynthia Connolly, and Greg Foster rounded out the crews.
Chain sawyer Jim Fetig formed a quick hit team including Justin Corddry and Sam Klein, with a mission to clear a number of reported blowdowns. Plotting their stops carefully, they drove to key AT access points and hiked to blowdowns referenced by GPS coordinates. Rinse, repeat. Twelve blowdowns later it was time for the Hoodlums potluck.
Wayne Limberg, Tom Troutman, and Cindy Ardecki stayed behind after the teams dispersed, tackling a cleanup and re-organization of the “large” shed where the PATC North District keeps gear supporting its volunteer mission. Nothing like having the inside track to first dibs at the potluck gathering!
Additional projects:
Several crew members stayed on after the regular Hoodlums outing with intent to work on key projects. Noel Freeman, Cindy Ardecki, Greg Foster, and Wayne Limberg took down an old privy at Indian Run maintenance hut as the first step in replacing it with a new varmint proofed version. Tom Moran, Justin Corddry, and Mark Wrobel joined up with Shenandoah Ranger Forrest Agee to build a stream crossing on Little Devils Stairs trail. Forrest brought know-how and the park’s grip hoist, a cable system with which they maneuvered four large rocks into position to provide steps across the popular trail. Then, heavy rain moved in for much of the rest of the week which sent the volunteers packing.