Over the last week

Many of us working on the project have been in and out of the office and the work site. Its been awhile since I was at the site because I had an SCA intern service project I attended (building a blind-accessible trail at Lake Moreau St Park N of Albany). I did get to finish up the school searches so I get to start calling the schools later this week, I suspect. On Friday I went to photograph the old pre-80's AT going up to the summit and the dangerous but highly used social trail behind the old ski jump.

The Old 80's AT should be easier to restore ecologically I suspect, as in many places the organic matter is certainly starting to build back up, but the trail is definitely still used. Some of the more immediate things we need to do is to block the obvious entrance to the trail. It is right across the old Perkins loop drive from the existing AT. There are spray painted directions on the ground, but if you don't look down you might not realize that you should be turning right. I know even Thru-Hikers have taken this old route, and its understandable because it looks SO obvious. In fact, most of the old blazes are there and stand out quite a bit-certainly helped ME follow the trail. Some were painted black but that paint is wearing off and revealing the white again. I've seen the maps and the new AT we are building will actually be very close to following this old AT in this section, so making sure the old trail is masked will be important to keep people from accidently following this once the new one is completed.

The ski jump "trail" is a whole 'nother beast. It is used probably almost as much as the AT is to get to the top. It is very steep and rocky and would require a LOT of work to get people to 1) not use it and 2) restore the natural ecology. This is SO compacted here. Obviously there is nothing we can do about restoring the ski jump part, and that IS historical and maybe should be preserved safely. An interesting thing I think the park should do it is to make an historical interpretive exhibit about the ski jump, showing pictures from its heyday etc. The problem lies, of course, after that. The trail continues on its way past the ski jump ruins. It may have 100 years ago been a logging road or something but it is very wide, steep and compacted now. People probably take it because they just want to go up and it is the first access to UP from the area of the Inn (and the ski jump has steps so it looks like something to take!). The trail leads up to a lovely view of the Hudson (the new AT will give you this view too, but safely!), and after that the trail loses definition and people either turn around or just...go up the mountain in anyway they can, and that might not be a safe direction that they pick. I know in the last few weeks someone fell off of some ledge up there and broke 2 bones. This one is definitely going to be a challenge to restore; we would definitely have to hope that people would respect a sign that says "ecological resoration in process" because people already ignore the "Stay on the designated trails, people have DIED going on unofficial trails."

Sunday was another work trip, however I didn't attend, as I already had my full week in with the SCA trip. I hear they built some more stone steps and had some new young volunteers. More news on that coming on Wednesday as we have a work trip tomorrow as well! We have some new people showing up, and I hope they enjoy themselves!
See you,

Carol

ps- we are doing a photo shoot for brochures about the project tomorrow. If you know any aspiring models come along! Actually, you don't need to be a model, none of us are! but you will "look beautiful darlink."