I finally met up with the dedicateed trail building team from the Huntsville Land Trust on Saturday morning. I'll blame my inner Wandering Man for providing the impetus that I needed. He has helped focus my life a lot recently.
I digress, the day started rather ominously. The sky hung full and it was lightly drizzling as I walked to my car, but I had hiked and worse and I was determined. I made the short drive to Wade Mountain in record time thanks to the non-existent Saturday morning traffic (I love Huntsville for just that reason - you try to drive anywhere in Atlanta on any morning). The city has another unique feature, namely if you take certain routes out of town, within five minutes Huntsville disappears and you're once again in farmland or wilderness. At one moment I was driving down a street with a center lane, then I turned off into a quaint side street neighborhood, and before I knew it I was surrounded by horse fields and finally the wilderness of the Wade Mountain preserve.
I was early, as I usually am, so I sat in my car and listened to the patter of rain. I didn't have to wait long, the lot soon filled with cars. While people mingled and tools were unloaded, those of us who hadn't helped before got the "Land Trust pitch" from the very friendly maintenance leaders. We were also warned to lather up with poison ivy block and insect repellent now. A quip was made, and I have to paraphrase: "If poison ivy was a crop, the Land Trust would be rich indeed because Wade Mountain always had a bumper crop."
The job - we would be building new trail to reroute a dead-end to make a loop. The tools of the day:
loppers, swing blades, and rakes - we were simply trying to clear the trail so we could come back on another expedition and do the heavy work.
We made the 30-min hike to the trail site through the Preserve, it was spring and the forest was lush with new growth. Thankfully the rain had stopped, but the humidity made the air feel like you were being hugged by a damp towel. At the site, we had to walk through poison ivy to start clearing the trail of more poison ivy - all in a days work.
I took a swing blade, others took up loppers and rakes and we set to WORK. Usually the loppers went first to clear the path, the swing blades followed to take care of the small brush, and the rakes came last to clear the trail down to bare earth. And so we went, we really blazed a trail early on, but then we hit a rocky incline that really made the swing blades and rakes useless. Undeterred, we cut and lopped our way up and through until we found a patch where the regular routine could begin again.
The time flew by between the back and forth of the swing blade. Only when someone said it was 11:30 and we were going to stop early did I feel the burn in my shoulders and wrists and notice that every inch of clothing was soaked in sweat.
For our effort, we hiked a little farther up and saw the interesting rock formations that the trail would eventually lead past. I am constantly amazed by the geology of the south east, it is a lesson in erosion on a massive scale. The short trek also made me realize the reroute was not going to be completed any time soon. It would take numerous work trips back to the site, and a lot more aching muscles to finish the trail. I'm looking forward to it.
I've checked and double checked for ticks, and had my triple length shower to wash off the poison ivy and the repellent. I'm *tired.* I never realized until now how much I'd been craving a day of real physical work. It is a great feeling!
If you love the outdoors, don't mind getting dirty, and real work doesn't intimidate you, I'd recommend calling up your local park and seeing if they need volunteers. Any park with a decent trail system has a trail crew. And if you're in Huntsville, come out and help the Land Trust - everyone was amazingly helpful and friendly!
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