The AT at Bears Den Rocks gets a better view
By Dan and Ellen Feer
The crew stayed at Bears Den in February. If you haven’t had a chance to look around inside, you should. It’s a wonderful place. The views from the rock just down the hill from the hostel are spectacular and this month we made them a little easier to get to from the south.
Heading south from the overlook, the trail went over a root mass and then steeply downward before heading steeply up again. Most hikers went around this section through some loose rocks and up the severely eroded trail. On this beautiful weekend, we wanted to change that. We broke into six teams working on small sections of the trail. Four teams built stairs and grade dips. Another team made gravel to fill in around the stairs and the finish team found mineral soil to spread over the gravel to complete the tread.
Thirty four people (Philip Abruzzese, Janet Arici, Edlyn Becton, Nina Blagrove, Karen Brown, Maria De La Torre, Alice DeCarlo, Kirsten Elowsky, Joe Falcone, Dan Feer (co-leader), Ellen Feer (co-leader), Vic Fickes, Stacy Furukawa, Chris Glembocki, Erica Glembocki, Bill Greenan, Neil Hopper, George Jones, Rob Lamar (District Manager), James Martin, Molly McKinley, Brian Napier, Don Oellerich, Cat Randall, Tysha Robinson, Samuel Rulli, Alisa Schaefer, MaryAnn Stetter, Steve Taylor, Steve Thompson, Kate Walker, Dan Wooley, and Mark Wrobel) worked along 50 yards of trail moving 1000 pound rocks, making gravel, sidehilling, digging drains, digging mineral soil using sharp and heavy tools. While we trained new crew volunteers we were safe and we had fun. We all finished the day tired and ready for happy hour and dinner.
Our host at Bears Den, Glen Breining, always makes us feel welcome, the Co-District Manager, Rob Lamar, always has interesting and challenging projects for us, and so many other volunteers behind the scenes contribute so much to make these trips successful. We love new volunteers. We train and mentor all ages. If this sounds like a good time to you, send a note to ccrewpatc@gmail.com.