Trail Maintenance Tips

Appalachian Trail Conservancy On-line Newsletter

The Register: The Online Stewardship Newsletter of the Appalachian Trail
Click Link to the AT Register

 Recommended Safety Gear Chart (PDF)

This chart is intended as a guide and is not comprehensive. Common sense and awareness are the best tools for any task.

Basic safety equipment for all trail work includes a first-aid kit, boots, work gloves, long pants, and appropriate dress for the weather.

Tips from The Crew

 

https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf07232806/pdf07232806dpi72.pdf

There are many regional differences in trail building and maintenance techniques, tools …. tips, hotlinks, and sidebars. The guidebook is ….. Figure 11—Grade reversals are much more effective than waterbars and require less maintenance. …. the drain needs to handle annual high-volume runoff without failing. (figure 20)
Bog Bridging Photos

 

Near north end of East Carry Pond Kennebec District Overseer Phil Pepin, and Assistant Overseer, Peter Roderick, led a bog-bridging workshop near the north end of East Carry Pond. New trail maintainer, A. Gordon Clarke, identified several areas along his trail assignment that needed new bridging due to the deterioration of current bridging and wet conditions causing unsightly widening of the footpath. This one-day workshop employed different bridging techniques ranging from using simple hand tools to more non-traditional methods — using chainsaws and a chainsaw mill.

WORKSHOP PHOTOS

 

 

To view larger images, try the thumbnail images.
Laura Flight felling a tree. Phil Pepin & Gordon Clark working the chainsaw mill.
Phil and the chainsaw mill. The final product of their efforts. Janice Gove stripping the bark.
Peter Roderick & Ray Ronan laying out the new bog bridging. The crew making progress on the bridging. Phil Pepin hauling the split logs to the site.
Thanks, Phil and Robin, for the photos.
Craig Dickstein delivering a log. What the crew accomplished in a day.