Forest Society Land Stewards BLOG: Monadnock Trails Week 2014

A group of volunteers assembles on the first day

This year's Monadnock Trails Week wasn't as hot as last years (thankfully), and it wasn't as busy (62 volunteers instead of 82), but it was very productive and, like always, a lot of fun. The first three days were beautiful blue-bird weather with cool temperatures in the 80s, and we took full advantage of the perfect trail work conditions. We constructed some waterbars and check steps on the Old Halfway House trail, worked on drainage and stepping stones on the Parker Trail, and constructed some new bog bridging on the Lost Farm Trail. There were many returning volunteers from previous years at trails week, and also a good number of new faces. All in all we put in more than 860 hours of work on Monadnock's trails... not too bad for five days' effort!

Goofing off on our completed bridges, Lost Farm Trail

Ray Jackson gives a bit of tool advice in the morning

Peeling logs for waterbars, Old Halfway House Trail

Volunteers (including land stewards the Bigls and the Stetsers) head to the Parker Trail for a day of work

Setting rocks in a waterbar on the Old Halfway House Trail

Getting a ride up the old toll road in the SPNHF truck

We had a crew of volunteers working all five days on the Pumpelly Trail, continuing work on the "Jacobs' Ladder" section of trail where crews constructed 50' of rock staircase last year. This year 17 new steps were added to this section, which will require many years of work before the eroded rock-strewn slopes are converted to staircase. The work is technical and very labor intensive on the Pumpelly trail, where crews are using trail winch systems called griphoists to move and high-line large rocks into position on the trail corridor. Volunteers often work one or two days at the Pumpelly trail and then give themselves a "break" by working on other trail projects if they volunteer to work a third day. Rare is the volunteer who toughs it out all five days of Monadnock Trails Week doing this heavy-duty rock work, but we always have a few!

The Pumpelly Crew on Day 5

Heavy packs and a long walk in and out for the Pumpelly team

Mike Zlogar is still smiling!

Another big project for MTW 2014 was replacement of decaying timber waterbars and check steps on the White Dot Trail. The White Dot is basically the main thoroughfare up the mountain; this trail sees an incredible amount of use, and as a result it is very wide. Waterbars and check steps that span the trail often have to be 25-30' in length... which means that timber drainages are far more convenient to install than rock waterbars. We replaced about 15 waterbars and check steps on the White Dot during Trails Week 2014, and there are at least 30 that still need to be replaced or repaired. There is always more work to be done on Mount Monadnock, and we're already looking forward to the 10th Annual Monadnock Trails Week in 2015!