Banner Sign Year!

We have been holding land steward workdays to refurbish wooden property and trail signs for the past three summers, and find that it is a really efficient way to ensure that we get a good number of these signs made or restored each year. Picking away at it over the course of the year sounds like a good idea, but in practice other things always seem to be higher on the priority list! As Jason is fond of telling us, it's a fourteen step process to transform a piece of rough-cut pine into a beautifully routed and gleaming property sign. Planing, Sanding, Stenciling, Rasping, Routing, Sanding (again), Staining (twice, or 3 times), Varnishing (twice) and Painting Letters (twice, or 3 times)... whew! This is why it helps to have a big group tackle the signs and do as many as we can at once... and with so many steps, there's a task to fit everyone's talents and interests.

Mike Elmes and Bart Hunter sand the rough-cut pine

Al Cort and John Tear staining

This year's sign workdays were extremely productive. The group ended up completing 41 new or refurbished signs (it takes just as many steps to refurbish a sign as to create one from scratch, believe it or not)...which is nearly double previous years' efforts. Some gorgeous new large property signs were made, but also many smaller signs that will provide direction to hikers on Forest Society reservations across the state. A big congratulations and thank you to all who assisted with the sign workdays this year.

Crew on Day 1 with routed Welch Farm sign. From L to R: Tyler Pelland, Wes Niebling, Seth Benowitz, Hiel Lindquist, Bob Fuller, Jason Teaster, Alan Cort, John Tear

Seth Benowitz inspects some smaller signs

Seth Benowitz, Scott Lavoice, and Jason Morris work on stenciling

Monadnock Trails Week 2011

Alan Cort and Tyler Pelland work on a rock waterbar

Tools. Rock. Timber. Sweat. Another great Monadnock Trails Week has come and gone! This was the 6th annual trails week (my 4th) and I have to say that I think we're getting more and more productive every year. The Dublin Trail, a straight 2.4 mile shot up the north side of Mt. Monadncock, was the recipeint of our efforts for the first three days this year. The drainages from about 1/2 mile to 1.5 miles up all needed cleaning, restoration, and rebuilding. Since suitable large rocks were difficult to find immediately surrounding the trail, we decided to use a significant nubmer of cut and peeled spruce logs for waterbars and check steps. Cutting, peeling, and especially moving these large logs into place required some significant teamwork and was a highlight of the week as a result. We used long slings to swing the logs slowly into position in some cases (check out the video below) and brute manpower to heft and carry the logs in others.

Moving a spruce log (photo: P. Russell)

Chris Garby uses an axe to peel a spruce log

More log transport (photo: R. Ward)

Trish (L) and Jackie (R) Russell show off their work, Dublin Trail

Part of the crew on Day 1, Dublin Trail

There was plenty of rock work as well, for those who like the mental and physical challenge of fitting and setting odd shaped rocks together into steps and drainages. Towards the end of trails week we shifted to the White Arrow Trail, which is accessed from the Old Toll Road parking area. On White Arrow rocks are in great abundance, so we were able to use them to create new stone steps and waterbars. Other tasks for the week included painting and hanging trail markers on sections of the Dublin and White Dot trails, restoring a mountain view at the old Halfway House site, and cleaning 30+ drains on the White Dot Trail. All told, it was just under 500 hours of work put in on the mountain over 5 days, by 36 participants. A very solid effort! Thanks to all who participated and made this year's Trails Week a huge success!

Mike Zlogar, Hiel Lindquist and Mike Williams adjusting a stone step, White Arrow Trail

Tool cache

video by Trish Russell