KTA Trail Care: The Baker Trail

by Dewaine Beard

​From June 27 through July 1, the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy hosted a KTA workweek on the Baker Trail at the Mahoning Creek Lake and Dam in Armstrong County. Over the past several years, the Conservancy has been working to move the Baker Trail off the rural roads in this area and onto the Army Corps of Engineers property along the lake. The finished route will be approximately 12 miles long. This season’s work focused on moving the last mile off the road and into the woods. The Conservancy had secured permission from 2 property owners to route the trail along an old logging road for the first half mile. The last half mile required only temporary clearing to connect the former trail with the new trail. From 2019 into 2020, the Conservancy will move this temporary section onto Army Corps of Engineers property and extend the trail some 2 more miles onto a scenic peninsula at the lake.
 
As always, this year’s effort required quite a bit of chainsaw and sidehill work, as we were actually clearing and building a new trail. Special thanks to Tom Bastian and Bill Dietrich for their dedication and extraordinary hard work.