We are on Black Mountain, in a saddle between two hills. Going north on the A.T. is our current worksite. It starts with new steps at the road but most of our work will be building a series of steps to the top of a steep hill. By the end of the first full weekend we had 10 new steps in place and we hope to set another 10 new steps during this 3 day crew outing.
This weekend was right in the middle of a heat wave. That’s 3 or more days with the temperature over 90 degrees and high humidity. Even with the heat wave we had a great turnout all 3 days. Sunday was the hottest with a heat index over 100 degrees. On Friday we carried a 5 gallon tank of clean drinking water up to the worksite for use by our crew and for thirsty A.T. thru-hikers. We have two work sites in this area. One is building the steps up the hill and another is at the top of the hill where new treadway was needed. In order to build the new treadway we needed a new crib-wall. During heavy rains, a lot of water rushes through this area eroding the trail. We will build in a water management feature into the crib-wall to address that problem before we add any new crush and treadway. We welcome Ed Choe to our crew and look forward to seeing him again. This was Ed’d 5th, 6th, and 7th day with the crew. Welcome aboard Ed.
The Appalachian Trail is always changing and evolving. All along the A.T., work crews, like LDTC constantly relocate and rehabilitate portions of the trail to protect nature and to enhance the Appalachian Trail hiking experience.
All of our projects take a lot of effort and as always, all done by volunteers. Our experience crew and crew leaders are eager to teach volunteers of all abilities the skills needed to build hiking trails.
Speaking of volunteers, not everyone can make it everyday and that’s OK with us. Some volunteers come out everyday while others can only make it to 1 or 2. Don’t feel that you have to commit to an entire project or even a weekend, any help is appreciated and being a volunteer you can come and go as you see fit.
We're a community of volunteers who build, protect and maintain hiking trails. We invite you to join us. You’ll be glad you did.
