Daily progress is measured one log at a time. The timber is trucked in as 20-foot loblolly pine tree trunks. Workers peel away the bark and prepare the wood for the more-skilled volunteers with chain saws, who cut the notches in each end that will mesh with the log laid on top of it. Fine-tuning each notch is done by hand chisel. It can take hours to get two logs to fit snugly together.
Volunteers grunt and strain each time they have to lift the pieces for more chiseling.
It s a neat guy thing, but women like to do it, too, says Turk, watching the action one recent Saturday. It s a mixture of precision and rustic skill. The shelter is being built in Bowie rather than near the Appalachian Trail, because it allows Turk to tap into a bigger volunteer pool and provides easier access to the construction site. The project, which started in January, has attracted dozens of volunteers students and faculty members from Johns Hopkins University , hikers who saw signs at outdoors shops and students from Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, where Turk teaches. Frankly, he wasn t ready to build a shelter, having just finished one for another part of trail in Maryland when Garvey died on Sept. 20, at the age of 84.