Hedgehog Mountain Gets a Facelift

Gale Tobbe and Ben Haubrich clean up Hedgehog Mountain last week

  Sometimes a property comes to the Forest Society with more than just great views, wildlife habitat, timber and recreational trails.  Sometimes there is trash too.  When that happens, we call in the land steward team and do our best to clean up the affected areas following acquisition, returning the land to a natural state.  Hedgehog Mountain Forest in Deering is a property that is now over 1000 acres, but was acquired in pieces over the last few years, involving numerous different parties and acquisitions.  One area of the reservation did  contain some significant waste materials, so we held a workday last week to remove a good deal of it.  Six land stewards and five staff members came out armed with work gloves and contractor bags, and we quickly filled three truck loads of trash.  One whole truck was filled with tires- fifty two of them to be precise!  It's not the most glorious land steward activity, but it is strangely satisfying to load up a mountain of refuse into a huge dump truck and watch it roll away to the transfer station.

Fifty-two tires

Wendy's new friend, found under some trash

Some of the clean up crew (L to R): Len Martin, Hiel Lindquist, Al Cort, Wendy Weisiger, Fred Tobbe

Trucks rolling off to transfer station

In addition to removing a large amount of trash, we also installed a new property sign for the Hedgehog Moutnain Forest, along Hedgehog Mountain Road.  From this area, there is soon to be a marked trail up to the Hedghog Ridge, where  you can enjoy great views of the mountains to the south and west.  Another great Forest Society property to explore and enjoy!

New sign at Hedgehog Mountain Forest

Stewards Alan Cort and Ben Haubrich admire the view from the Hedgehog ridge.

Monadnock Trails Heat (I mean... Week!)

 I'm not sure why, but Monadnock Trails Week (MTW) always seems to fall on the hottest week of the year.  Maybe it's because we schedule it in mid-July every year, hoping for a miraculous 75 degrees and 20% humidity...and instead getting the reality that is 92 degrees 99% humidity!   In any case, Monadnock Trails Week this year was HOT!  The 39 volunteers and 8 staff who participated sweated and suffered (and smiled!) like crazy while climbing the mountain each day.

Rock work on White Arrow Trail

Our first few days were spent near treeline on the White Arrow Trail, constructing a new stone walking surface over a 60' stretch of muddy trail.  We had originally planned to construct timber bog bridging over at least 20' of this stretch but in the end we had so much rock to work with that we decided to go with durability over speed and make the entire length in rock.  Many gigantic boulders were unearthed and moved  into place using the griphoist and rock bars, and we also had to create a lot of gravel "the old fashioned way"...using a sledge hammer to break larger rocks into smaller ones.  The gravel was used to raise the surface of the trail and set the large rocks into.  This project came out beautifully in the end, and we only hope that it will stay above water when the spring rains come next year.  

Coggins sisters operating the griphoist

Rock step project near completion

On days 3 and 4 we worked on the White Cross Trail, one of the most heavily used routes to the summit that leaves from Park headquarters.  The White Cross Trail is suffering from one of the most common problems on trails used as heavily as those on Monadnock- bootleg trails.  Bootleg trails are those created by hikers preferring to walk through the forest on the side of the trail, as opposed to walking on the rocky and compacted surface of the trail itself.  This practice ends up causing erosion and results in widening of the trails over time, as the old "bootleg" becomes a rocky surface just like the rest of the trail and a new bootleg is created.  Our job was to fill in all of the bootleg trails with forest debris (branches, rocks, fallen trees, leaves, etc.) in order to make them clearly uninviting to hikers.  We felled a lot of dead and dying spruce trees (extra pokey and unfriendly to walk through) to place in the bootlegs over these two days!

Gale Tobbe helps fill in bootleg trails on White Cross Trail

John and Lise Bigl taking a break from bootleg filling

The final day of Monadnock Trails Week found us on the Monta Rosa trail, a pretty little trail that leads to a secondary peak with the same name, Monta Rosa.  Here we constructed a new footbridge over a small drainage so that hikers will not have to get their feet wet in crossing.  This was a perfect closing project for MTW 2012, as it is always satisfying to build a bridge in a few hours and then watch hikers walking over it and appreciating your handiwork.

Fred Tobbe, Ray Jackson, and Bruce Richards work on pinning the Monta Rosa bridge with  rocks

Doug McKenna and Aaron Horner deck the Monta Rosa bridge

Crew on the last day, on the Monta Rosa bridge!

This year's MTW set a new record for number of person-hours worked - at 636, at least 100 hours over any previous trails week.  We also had 39 great volunteers and a number of Forest Society and State Parks staff participate, many for several days.  Thank you to everyone who helped out during the week- we wholeheartedly appreciate it!  (And sorry about the heat!)

Kennelly Bridge Complete!

The bridge at Kennelly Forest in Dublin was completed about a week ago!  This bridge has been a complicated project from the beginning, as we realized that in order to span this extremely flashy stream we'd need a bridge that was roughly 30 feet long.  The previous bridge was a drawbridge that was set low to the ground- a good idea to be able to lift the bridge before large storms, but it still blew out in a large rainstorm, so we knew it's replacement would take some consideration.

Some of the core bridge crew, on the finished bridge

Since lumber is not readily available in lengths greater than 20' and there were no suitable trees to cut for bridge stringers in the immediate vicinity, land steward Bart Hunter came up with a plan to create spliced stringers of appropriate length out of pressure treated lumber and laminate pieces that were staggered, glued, and bolted together.  Stringers made this way have been used in timber bridges for a long time, and are generally as strong as solid pieces of wood; however, we'd never tried to make a bridge like this before! It was a learning process for all involved. 

The abutments for the bridge were also a challenge, as we needed to raise the bridge a good 3 to 4 feet above the stream to be safe from rising water events.  To do this, the bridge crew created wood cribs out of large pieces of 12"x12" lumber, and filled/pinned them in with boulders.  Getting these abutment pieces across the stream required a griphoist (trail winch) and a high-line system that was used to ferry pieces one by one across the water.  It was slow going but worked extremely well.  The highline was also used to move the bridge stringers into place.  Finally, the decking was added, and then a railing.

High-lining a stringer over the water

All told, we estimate that the Kennelly bridge involved well over 300 hours of volunteer power!  Many thanks all the volunteer land stewards who worked on this project, espeically Bart Hunter, Walter Weeks, Alan Cort, Hiel Lindquist, Ray Jackson, Mark Kresge, Ruth Ward, and Karl Putnam.  Amazing work everyone!

Gap Mountain Bridge Work

Alan Cort, Walter Weeks and Hiel Lindquist completed some much needed bridge work on the trail to the North Peak of Gap Mountain this week.  The bridge was over a small stream on the side trail from Old Mill Road.  This trail receives quite a bit of foot traffic as it is used as the main hiking trail to the top of Gap Mountain by visitors at East Hill Farm in Troy.  Although there is no water in the brook at the moment, there is a wide span to cross when there is high water.

We had originally planned to replace this bridge next year but closer inspection showed it was beyond repair and need to be replaced sooner rather than later.

A "before" picture showing the rotten, moss covered planks

The material for the new bridge was delivered during Mondanock Trails week (thanks Wendy and crew, for lugging the material to the trail head !).

Walter Weeks cutting up the old stringers.  They were just about rotted through in several places.

Sizing up the new stringers on the new foundation.

Alan working on the decking.

Alan and Walter admiring the completed job.

Walter and Hiel ready to call it a day and head home.  Three hours work and done before 11:00 AM !

Work continues on Kennelly Forest Bridge

Bart Hunter is leading a major bridge construction project in Kennelly Forest in Dublin.  Over the past few weeks volunteers and Forest Society personnel finished the foundation work and major structural elements of the bridge.  The foundation work took a little longer than planned.  As can be seen in the pictures, a few rocks had to be rearranged before the bridge abutments could be installed.

On Saturday, July 7, Bart Hunter, along with Alan Cort, Ray Jackson, Hiel Lindquist and Walter Weeks put in another day of work doing some additional rock work, installing steps, and bridge rails and decking.  After the work today, it looks like we are in the homestretch on this job.

We will provide more pictures once the project is completed. 

Walter, Ray and Alan

  Almost ready for the bridge decking

July 14 Update - Finished !!!

Alan attaching the final hand rail

Work Crew on Jul14

 Hiel, Alan. Bart, Walter

Thanks to all the participated on this project over the past month.

Buxton-Simons Forest Workday

View clearing at the top of Mount Wallingford is fun for all ages! (photo: T. Irwin)

In June, a group of volunteers led by Land Steward Terry Irwin completed their third trail workday on the Buxton-Simons Forest in Weare.  Terry has been a steward for this property since 2009 and he was instrumental in the restoration of a hiking trail on the property to the summit of Mount Wallingford.  Views from the summit had all but grown  in when the trail was restored in 2010, but Terry and a group of local volunteers has set to work maintaining the trail and expanding the view.  Expanding the views from the summit will have other tasty consequences too, as the understory vegetation here is mostly low-bush blueberries!  Come check out this great trail if you get the chance!

Working hard (photo: T.Irwin)

The crew (minus Terry) on the most recent workday. (photo: T. Irwin)