Finally finally finished

Today I finished the last three trails.  Although after Tuesday's oral surgery I wasn't supposed to engage in "exercise", I decided to walk slowly the last few miles of trail that had somehow escaped my notice.  I did check yet again the backs of the maps to make sure I wasn't missing any others.

I started off on the Eaton Hollow trail passing the Schairer Trail Center.  Look at this incredible view from the porch!  Makes you want to go out on a trail crew, no?

Then I continued on to the Argow Cabin, where I worked on a cabin crew in 2008 or 2009.  Another beauty with a fabulous view.

After returning to the car I drove up to Loft Mt. Wayside, parked the car, and walked the paved trail into the campground to the camp store, then the amphitheater, and finally the trail to the AT from the amphitheater.  Many aspects made this an enjoyable hike.  First of all, on the way up to the camp store I saw a gorgeous baltimore oriole (much smaller than I thought and much more brilliant) and a phosphorescent bluebird (see if you can find it!). 

The woods were alive with birdsong.  Second, I was glad, after passing it up twice, to walk the  connector trail from the AT to the camp store.  Finally, the amphitheater was breathtaking.  I sat down to eat my lunch and enjoy the view. 

Then I drove up to my trail to see if the little stream was still going through the 6th waterbar from the south.  Sure enough it looked like a stream to me although it had rained a lot the two days before.

So I'm definitely done.  I'll write another SNAP500 posting about which trails to exclude from future SNAP 500s. 

Trailwork and I'm not done yet

The last two weeks I've spent my time in Shenandoah National Park doing trail maintenance on "my" section of the Appalachian Trail (from Skyland Stables to the Passamaquoddy Trail in the Central Section).  On the first trip, with Dick Potteiger as advisor and coworker, we cleared 59 waterbars between the Nature Trail parking lot and somewhere just south of Little Stonyman.  Then this week I went back to clear the remainder of the waterbars (53 more!).  It's a lot of work in the spring and fall clearing waterbars.

One of the very special aspects of "my" trail is the unique salamander species that must be protected on the Stony Man side of the trail.  To protect them I'm not allowed to move large rocks.  There has been an ongoing research program about unique salamanders in the Park for many years.  On the first day of trail work I actually saw a tiny salamander unearthed when I swept away leaves from a waterbar.  I don't think he was hurt. 

What's a waterbar, you ask?  They are the diagonal dams in trails that shunt water off the trail.  Waterbars keep trails from getting muddy and also from becoming streams.  Sometimes waterbars are just dirt berms, sometimes they are logs, and sometimes they are made of stones embedded in the ground.

Here are some before and after pictures of a waterbar on my trail.  The top one is the "before" picture (notice all the leaves and sticks in front of the stone waterbar).  The tool standing up in the background is a McLeod which is the combination hoe and rake used to clean waterbars. 

Now I have a confession to make.  While I was rechecking all the trails (in the book and on the back of maps)  I discovered three I didn't do for the SNAP 500 (the Eaton Hollow Trail, which I previously hiked when helping construct the Argrow Cabin) and the two paved trails within the Loft Mt. Campground.  I will do them this week and then be totally totally finished.