Date: 2009-09-05
To: Prep #7
Miles today: 0.0

RESPECTI¢ve gained a new respect for all the trail builders and trail maintainers of the world. On a cool but beautiful late August weekend, Keith and I drove 6 hours up to Copper Falls State Park in north central Wisconsin and volunteered to cut, bench and grade a 14 mile re-route of the North Country Trail. Because the NCT is one of my favorite trails for snowshoe/backpack trips, it was an opportunity to pay it forward.   The Park allowed all the volunteers to camp at one large site and people were arriving and setting up late into Friday evening. I turned in early and, as I usually do, woke up in the early pre-dawn just as the eastern horizon was starting to lighten. As I made my way to the call of the privy, I noticed a shadowy figure was also up. It was still dark and very early so we sort of grunted a good morning to each other and I continued on my way. About 45 minutes later, as I¢m sipping on my coffee by my tent waiting for breakfast to rehydrate, the shadowy figure comes over. It was Griz, a backpacker/winter camper I met at Newport State Park last February who had driven up from the Milwaukee area. We were both surprised to find someone we knew so far afield. There¢s always a pleasant sense of comaraderie when you cross paths again.We were talking and laughing so everyone was up and moving shortly after. Seventeen volunteers headed out in high clearance 4WD vehicles early Saturday morning, went a few miles down some county roads and then slowly drove up an old, very rutted logging road near the re-route site.   We drove as far as we could up the logging road and started offloading all the tools. That¢s when I started to get nervous. These were BIG tools, not your garden variety hoes and rakes: Chainsaw, brush mower, axes, mattocks, mcleods. And they all had to be carried about a half mile uptrail to the re-route location.The old trail went straight up a hill at a very steep grade (more of a climbing trail than a hiking one) and was causing erosion problems. The re-route would more gently curve up the hill. The re-route had of course already been approved by the U.S. Forest Service and was flagged, so we started with removing and destumping all the trees, saplings and brush along the 30¢ wide path of the re-route using a chainsaw a few times, but mostly with loppers, then hacking the roots out with cutting mattocks--something like a pickaxe and just as heavy. Also had to remove a few rocks that the glacier gods had foolishly placed along the new trail tread using big, HEAVY 5¢ steel pry bars and a lot of brute force. One in particular was sticking up about 6¢ but as we started to dig around it bets were being made that in fact it was an iceberg. In other words that the 6¢ that was showing was just the tip and in fact it was going to go down a few feet underground. Sure enough. Took us about 45 minutes to pry that monster out and move it off the new tread. Like a good fishing story, it tends to get bigger with the telling, but it did weigh hundreds of pounds and took four of us to move it. Then we had this gaping hole so carried and filled it with softball sized rocks from up and down the hill, covering it level to the tread with dirt.We had the trail path cleared but it still wasn¢t a trail, it was still a hillside with a 40-60+ degree slant. We split into several crews and then the most amazing thing happened.   We started to scrape dirt out from the side of the hill (again using BIG, HEAVY tools) and before too long a real trail started to emerge, a hikeable, pleasant, well thought out trail with no more than a 20% grade up the entire hill and with 5% side slope and strategic placement of rocks and logs on the downhill side to prevent erosion. Seventeen of us worked our butts off for seven hours, but oh! the awesome feeling of satisfaction as we walked down that trail that we had just built from the untamed forest floor!