After going to the Professional Trailbuilders Conference in  Asheville, NC the trail season started at Bear Mountain State Park in New York were I met up with Peter S Jensen and Associates to work on a section of the Appalachian Trail.  The project is working with the New York New Jersey Trail Conference and volunteers to complete a new 350 foot section of trail.  The funding to complete this section of trail is coming from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the National Park Service. 

The section of trail to be completed includes 50+ native stone steps, 100 feet of stone crib wall and mortared stone bridge abutments.  This section of trail is a part of a mile long section of trail that is going to be completed largely with the help of volunteers.

The picture on the left is taken in the our native stone quarry where we are producing most of our steps and building stone for the project.  The granite slab of rock in the photo is 15 feet long by 20 feet wide by 2 feet thick and has produced 20 steps 5 feet long so far and a bunch of building stone. The stone is then being lifted in the air from the quarry and sent down a 300 foot high line to different work sites below using a 2 ton winch (516 grip hoist) 

This project design is for a five foot wide trail across a 35 to 45 degree slope with a maximum grade of 10 percent.  The average step height is 7 inches and the crib wall is an average of 4 feet and up to 7 feet tall.

        

The photos above are the before and after of a section a trail I recently completed. The trail narrows down to 2.5 feet wide to accommodate the boulder on the left and the black birch on the right. On the down hill side of the trail the crib wall goes around the black birch leaving a 10 inch gap around the tree to provide room for growth.  It also provides room for the tree fall over without jeopardizing the structure of the wall. 

We are currently in the process of completing this project so check back for more updates.

After working on the East Coast in the spring we made it back to Wisconsin for the summer to work with the Wisconsin Youth Conservation Corps (WisCorps) on a project.  This was the first crew and project for the WisCorps which was just started this spring.  Great Lakes Trailbuilders donated a week of work, the project design and the t-shirts for the crew.  The scope of the project was to