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Trail Crew!
Trail Crew Volunteers
It is time to sign up for maintenance projects that Forty-Sixer crews will undertake in 2018. New this year, we offer an online sign-up form: https://tinyurl.com/Trail-Crew-Signup-2018. If you have problems using the online form, please reach out via e-mail: adk46ertrailwork@gmail.com (but please sign up on-line if at all possible). Come out and have fun as often as you can! — Sam, Joe, Tom, Doug H, Doug V, and Brian, Trailmasters
Download 2018 trail maintenance schedule
2018 Trail Maintenance Schedule
May 4-11: (Or earlier - Weather is a factor here) Horse Trail Maintenance
We will be working from Duck Hole to Newcomb. Requirements: Crew size is limited. Must be in excellent physical condition and health. You may be required to carry up to 50 pounds of gear for up to 20 miles. We will be staying in the wilderness, and you must have proper equipment and food for the entire stay. We will work long hours and the work will be very hard. Still interested? More details to follow as the time gets closer.
May 12-13: Dix-Elk Lake Blow Down Sweep and Work at JBL with Katie.
The JBL crew is limited in size. Elk Lake crew will meet at Frontier Town at 7:15 a.m. Specific information about the JBL crew will follow as the time gets closer.
May 26: Dix-Round Pond, Giant North and Whiteface Blowdown Sweeps
We will meet at various trailheads at 7:15 AM. The Whiteface blowdown sweep is limited in size. Camping available at Sharp Bridge State Campground. Friday and Saturday nights, sites 10 and 11.
May 27: The Mr. Van Lean-To Rebuild
We shall undo the damage mother nature did. We will meet at the South Meadow trailhead at 7:00 AM. Camping will be available at Sharp Bridge State Campground; Friday and Saturday nights, sites 10 and 11.
June 9-10: The Kagel Lean-to Relocation Project
We will meet at the Adirondack Loj at 7:15 AM both days. Participants will be e-mailed a parking pass.
June 23-24: Finish the Kagel Lean-to or another construction project.
We will meet at the Adirondack Loj at 7:15 AM both days. If lean-to project is complete, there is other work needed on the way in to Marcy Dam. Participants will be e-mailed a parking pass.
July 21-22: Women Only Weekend (WoW) 2018
Camping Friday and Saturday night at Paradox Lake State Campground, sites 53-56. Meet-up time is 7:30 AM each morning.
August 4-5: Trail work outside the High Peaks.
This year we’ll work in Saranac Lake and camp at Meadowbrook State Campground, sites 14-16. Meet-up time is 7:30 AM each morning.
August 18-19: Putnam Pond Campout 2018
Camping Friday and Saturday nights at Putnam Pond State Campground, sites 57-61. We will work on various projects around the large campground and the trail masters will provide a Saturday night cookout feast.
September 8-9: Upper Works trail work
Various projects on the Bradley Pond and Calamity trails. Camping Friday and Saturday nights at Harris Lake State Campground, sites 36-37. Meet-up time 7:30 AM both days, meet-up spots will be determined before the outing.
September 29: Fall Meeting
Worksite locations TBD.
Bog Bridges or the "Walkway to Heaven"
If you have been avoiding climbing Iroquois because of the quagmires of mud, muck, and stagnant water along the Algonquin/Boundary/Iroquois ridge, you are in for a pleasant surprise! The spring the Adirondack Mountain Club's profesional trail crew [under the supervision of Andrew Hamlin (ADKT Trails Coordinator), Robert Daley (Forester 2, DEC), and Wes Lampman (North Country Operations director, ADK)] built a series of stringer bridges...Read more
A mud-free Bradley pond trail? Not quite yet, but...
Ranger Delbert Jeffery chose the summer of 2012 to tackle the much maligned Bradley Pond Trail which climbers travel to reach the just as often derided Santanoni Range peaks. He found in the 46er Volunteer Trail Crew the perfect partner for the task at hand.
We are talking here of a section of trail that starts once one leaves the private hunting club's gravel road some 1.8-miles from the trailhead's parking area. It stretches 2.6 miles mostly in what 46er Trail Master Pete Hickey appropriately calls "perpetual mud" all the way to the lean-to which sits north of Bradley Pond, its namesake (also known as Santanoni lean-to), under the shadow of Henderson Mountain.
In spring, 2012, a few sections were flagged and ready for re-routing. Later, by mid-summer materials had been delivered even though a long half-a-mile from the work site! On June 23 and 24, the 46er crew opened the new sections, a tedious job which involved cutting, leveling, blocking off the old trail with debris, installing trail markers and directional signs, etc., for a grand total of .5-mile!
The longer re-routed section is between the turn-off (at the often flooded Beaver Pond) for the Panther Brook herd path and the lean-to where the trail now sits on higher ground. During those two days and on September 15, the crew dug numerous drainage ditches and installed 240 feet of bog bridging. Needless to say, hauling the lumber to the site was the most challenging part of the assignment.
Our 46er crew will be back in 2013, as Ranger Jeffery is planning more re-routing. He has ordered the necessary materials not only for additional bog bridges but also for rebuilding the first rickety (unsafe) bridge and repairing the larger one spanning high above Santanoni Brook, which presently lacks a railing.
