40th Anniversary of Trail Care July Review by Jenn Ulmer & Al Germann

The 40th Season of Trail Care has been transformative! Building trails, skills, and friendships. We have held ten events and have seven to go yet. Over those ten events, we had an average of 16 volunteers and 160 hours contributed (that includes a one- and a two-day event). Our numbers are definitely up over last year, but starting to decline as summer rolls along and everyone is so busy. See if you can fit us in your schedule and help give back to PA's hiking trails; let's keep the momentum going. You can join us for the whole weekend, or just a day. I have finally completed updating event websites for all the remaining Trail Care events; you can now sign up HERE for as many as you want! In addition to the usual weekend events, there are also Tuesday Trail Cares at LeTort Spring Garden Preserve in Carlisle on 8/20 and 9/17, and we've added another A.T. workday on 11/2.

To recap: in May and June, we worked on all four Regions of the Mid State Trail. In State College, we basically cleared the entire section(!) from Penn Roosevelt State Park to Stillhouse Hollow (8 miles), except a couple short spots. In Everett, we tackled the entire section (10 miles) from Biddle Place north to Ashcom Road (except for a short spot near Ashcom), and half of the section from the Civil War Trenches south to Blue Triangle. Almost all of the mowable sections were cleared. In Woolrich, we cleared 10 miles of brush and blowdowns, rebenched ~250' of sidehill, and cleaned out some rock stairs. In Tioga, we mowed to our hearts' content over the three days, and also cleared the Water Tank-MST-Stone Quarry loop off the Pine Creek Rail Trail, as well as installing crucial blazes and signs.

At the first Trail Care in April, there were 26 volunteers! On the Quehanna Trail and side trails we worked on bridges and puncheon, built a new footbridge, and lopped, brushed, sawed, and blazed  29 miles of trail. In May, we worked on the Chuck Keiper Trail: 1000' of sidehill was redug, a junky campsite was cleaned out (6 contractor bags full, in the rain, 2.5 miles down, then back up), and the much-anticipated reroute on the Cross Connector, around the muck-up-to-your-knees swampy area, was completed. In June, we traveled to Oil Creek State Park and completely overhauled all but one of the trails in Wildcat Hollow before the rains came. Crews did an exceptional job rebenching and clearing trails, as well as rehabbing, repairing, and replacing bridges and boardwalks.

In July, crews tackled parts of the West Rim Trail and connector trails, taking full advantage of three days of wonderful weather. Five miles of trail was cleared of brush and 6.2 miles of trail was re-blazed. 600 feet of sidehill was also redug, stabilizing those areas from erosion and providing a much more level hiking surface.