Trail rehabilitation is hard!
Dan and Ellen Feer
When District Manager and Cadillac Crew member Bill Greenan asked us to work on Lutkins Passage of the Tuscarora Trail in West Virginia near Spruce Pine Hollow for one of his trips, we knew it was going to be a challenge. The tract of land owned by PATC slopes at more than 40 degrees, and there is no place to park at the trailhead. For the past couple years we have been relocating a segment of the Tuscarora Trail on this hill to a route that is more sustainable and safer to walk. This trip was planned to finish the relocation and finish a parking lot.
Saturday morning was hot, humid, and buggy so we loaded up on water, electrolytes, bug spray, and lunch and headed for the trail. Before we could work on the relocation several trees needed to be felled and bucked.
Robert Fina, project manager and saw instructor, and
Aidan Badhwar, recently carded B sawyer, headed up the trail with swampers
Kirsten Elowsky and
Don Oellerich. Crew leaders
Dan and Ellen Feer cleared a leaning tree from the trailhead with just a few quick cuts.
Bill led the rest of the crew,
Janet Arici, Alice DeCarlo, Jarrod Marie, Marty Martin, Yves Pinsonneault, Ellen Shaw, John Spies, and
Keith Tondrick, and continued building the three-car parking lot for hikers that was started last season. When the sawing was done, half the crew headed up the hill to relocate the trail and the other half continued on and completed the parking lot that included a cribwall and a turn-around.
