Date: 2003-05-19
To: Trail Maintenance
Miles today: 0.0

Saturday I went out to the Lone Star Hiking Trail to do some trailmaintenance. I had volunteered to adopt a portion of trail and wasnotified last week that I had been given a two mile section called theNorth Wilderness Trail. This short trail adjoins the LSHT at two placesin order to make a short loop hike. It is not widely used as there are anumber of other loop hikes on the trail. I had never been on it, though Ihad passed the marker for the turnoffs many times. So bright and earlySaturday morning, I got up, took a pair of lopers, a small pair of gardenclippers, some workgloves and my fanny pack and headed out. It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear after a night of rain and thesun was just coming up as I drove east to the trail. My car radio was tunedto my favorite Christian station and the praise music was moving. When Igot to my section I could tell that it had been a while since anyone hadbeen hiking there, and much longer since it had been maintained. Now, there is a fine line in trail maintenance. You want to cut backenough to make the trail passable, but not so much that it takes away fromthe wilderness experience. My job was to remove any branches that wouldhit a hiker and clear away any vines or bushes actually growing in thetrail. Those branches waist level and above were no problem to me. Butthose below my waist were. My morning was pretty much: bend, squat, clip,up, step, bend, squat, clip, up...etc. I thought that two miles of trail would be pretty easy to do in a morning. I had five hours and that should have been plenty of time, or so Ithought. After a couple of hours my back was complaining. So I sat downand ate a pack of cheese crackers, a handful of gorp and a bottle ofwater. Then I got up to work some more. My pedometer said that I had noteven done a mile yet. I was sure that it must not be working right. By the time four hours had passed, my back said "if you bend over one moretime, you are not going to get up!" So I listened! I decided that I hadtwo options. There are parking lots near either end of my section. Icould hike on what I thought was probably a short distance to the nextparking lot and hope that someone was there who could take me back to mycar at the other. (That way, I could see how much more trail was left)Or, I could turn around and hike back to my car. Reason told me thatthere probably was not anyone standing around waiting to chauffeur me so Ibetter turn around and get hiking. By the time I got back to my car, I was aching and exhausted. Now, I amused to pretty long hikes. But this trail work is the hardest work I'veever done! Some people think that teaching school is an easy job. Itisn't; it is hard, frustrating, stressful, and mentally, emotionally,agonizing work. Sometimes you wonder if you will ever see any results. Trail maintenance is physical, back-breaking work! I've never doneanything like it. Yet, the results were immediate. There in front of mewas a beautiful green tunnel of trail, that I had cleared. It waswonderful. I realized what an ungrateful, lazy hiker I have been: always using, nevergiving back to the trail. So, no more! Now I realize how much I owe allthose trail maintainers who spend thankless hours doing this. So to allyou trail maintainers - a big thank you! And to the rest of you, get outthere and volunteer!