Finger Lakes National Forest 2010

Program Name: Finger Lakes National Forest
Dates: 9/7/10- 9/13/10

Finished self-moldering privy
South Burnt Hill pond Turnpikes- 2
Interloken drain dip- 1, 450 feet long
Decommissioned old privy
Broke down camp, washed car and tools

Hitch 8 wrapped up the field season for the Finger Lakes tails crew. It has been an incredible summer full of many challenges and accomplishments. Throughout the summer we built a stone retention wall on the Ravine trail, four re-routes along the Interloken trail, and many drain dips along the Interloken and Burnt Hill trails. During hitch 8 we put the finishing touches on the self-moldering privy we have been working on since Hitch 3, however, our main accomplishment this hitch was completing two turnpikes on the Interloken trail near the South Burnt Hill pond. Along with the two we built last hitch we used 34 6x6’s, over 170 feet of landscape fabric, and 10 yards of gravel. It certainly was a tall order when we started building the turnpikes last hitch, but with the help of the Forest Service and their ATV’s we were able to get them done with a few days to spare. After completing the turnpikes we focused our energies on a few little odd jobs, such as cleaning up a drain dip we built on the Interloken trail, and then started the long process of breaking down and cleaning up camp, our tools, and the truck.
The entire crew would like to thank the US Forest Service and the Forest Service employees at Finger Lakes National Forest. They made our stay here fun, informative, and productive. We also want to encourage you to come visit the beautiful Finger Lakes National Forest and see all our great work firsthand.

Program Name: Finger Lakes National Forest
Dates: 8/9/10- 8/16/10

Culverts under Interloken turnpike- 3
Laid 6x6’s for Interloken turnpike- 12
Burnt Hill drain dips- 10
Installed carsonite posts- 5
Native Plant restoration- 900 plants

With the privy nearing completion we were able to focus our attention on our next big assignment, installing turnpikes along the Interloken, Gorge, and South Slope trails. Of the three the Interloken trail turnpike will be the biggest challenge. Since the trail is so low and muddy we started by installing 3 large culverts (two 10 inch and one 12 inch) underneath the future turnpike. The ground was so wet it nearly took our boots off with every step, and made digging the trenches for the culverts quite the challenge. However, as always, we persevered and by the end of the first day all 3 culverts were in the ground.
On the second day we took a break from the turnpiking to check out Empire Farm Days, the largest farm show in the Northeast. While at Farm Days we learned new techniques on breaking in horses, how to identify invasive insect pests, new farming methods, and even taste tested new products such as June berries and new strains of corn.
On day three it was back to work again. We helped Rebecca and four Green Mountain National Forest employees plant over 900 native plants at a site that was treated for the invasive Vinca, aka Periwinkle, plant last spring. The planting took the entire day. It was a nice change of pace to plant a native plant rather than to cut down and uproot an invasive plant. All summer long we have been removing invasive plants so it was good to finally put something in in their place.
On the fourth day of hitch it was back to the turnpike. We dug drainage ditches into and out of our culverts and laid the 6x6’s that will hold the turnpike in place. Like the culverts on day one the mud made it difficult to lay in the 6x6’s in place. It took a full day and the morning of day five to finish laying in the 12 6x6’s. After we finished laying in the 6x6’s and staking them in with rebar we headed up to the northern end of the forest were a tree had fallen across the Interloken trail. Scott was able to clear the tree with the chainsaw. They rest of the afternoon was spent installing carsonite posts at trail heads on the northern end of the forest.
On the morning of day six Marc, Holly, and Ellen moved a sign that was in the wrong place on the Interloken trail while Scott and Kevin scouted some boardwalk that needed work near Foster Pond. Afterwards we went to the Burnt Hill trail between Burnt Hill Road and the Interloken trail to build drain dips. We were able to finish 3 drain dips on day six, and finished off the last seven on day seven before heading to the South Slope trail to clear another downed tree.
As usual, we spent the last day of hitch cleaning tools, breaking down camp, and doing administrative work.

Progress Report:

Program Name: Finger Lakes National Forest
Dates: 7/13/10- 7/20/10

Carried lumber to privy site
Stained Plywood- 17 4x8 sheets
Backfilled Interloken Trail with soil removed from privy foundation- 150 feet
Constructed Privy
Carried 6x6’s up Gorge Trail- 11 8 foot 6x6’s

The majority of hitch 4 was spent working on the moldering privy at Dunham Shelter on the Finger Lakes trail. The Finger Lakes trail is part of the North Country trail system, and the new privy will be a dramatic improvement for through hikers as well as casual day hikers and picnickers.
We started off the hitch by carrying the lumber we stained last hitch to the privy site. It was a big challenge and took Kevin, Ellen, and Marc the better part of the day, but would have been a lot harder if it wasn’t for Marv (a US Forest Service Employee) and his ATV. While Kevin, Ellen, and Marc carried in the lumber, Scott and Holly carried out the soil excavated from the foundation and put it to use building up some particularly muddy sections of the Interloken trail. On day two we focused on staining the remainder of the plywood for the privy. We sure were glad to finally finish staining this day. After letting the plywood dry overnight we hauled the plywood to the privy site. Again, thanks to Marv and his ATV. We then spent the afternoon constructing the framing for the floor of the privy.
On day four we took a break from constructing the privy. We could not go any further until the circular saw the USFS was nice enough to buy us came in. We spent the day carrying the remainder of the 6x6’s we will be using for turnpiking up the Gorge trail. Way back in hitch 1 we hauled 9 6x6’s up the trail, but still had 11 left over. While carrying in the 6x6’s it was obvious to us how much stronger we have gotten in the past 6 weeks. Back in hitch 1 it was incredibly difficult to get the 6x6’s up the trail. During hitch 4 we carried them in without even having to take rest breaks!
On day five our circular saw had arrived and we got back to work on our top priority, the moldering privy. By the end of the day we had the floor finished and all the walls framed off. The following day we hung the plywood walls up. Hanging the walls turned out to be harder than we anticipated; plywood is not light. Nevertheless, all four walls were complete by the end of the day.
On day seven we constructed the privy door. Afterwards we realized that there was not enough 2x4s to frame the roof. We spent the afternoon tracking down 2x4s and staining them. On the final day of hitch 4 we finished framing the roof. The privy is now 90% complete. We are just waiting for the roofing materials and the toilet accessories to come in and we will have it finished in no time.

Progress Report:

Program Name: Finger Lakes National Forest
Dates: 6/14/10-6/21/10

Planted Tree at Hector Ranger’s Office (1 Dutch Elm’s Disease resistant Elm Tree)
Ravine Trail Drain Dips (4)
Re-established Ravine Trail Outslope and benching (260 feet)
Interloken Trail Drainage Structures (5)
Ravine Trail corridor (¾ mile)
Ravine Trail Retention Wall (30 square feet)
Brushed/Cleared/ removed multi flora rose Burnt Hill Trail (½ mile)
Interloken Trail reroutes (216 feet)

We started hitch 2 by planting a Dutch Elm’s Disease Elm tree at the USFS Ranger’s Office. Planting this tree gave us hope that the American Elm could possibly make a recovery in the future.
After planting the tree we got back to doing what we do best; trail work. We headed over to the Ravine Trail to take a look at a retaining wall Rebecca told us was falling over. When we got there we could not believe what we found. The wall was completely toppled over, and most of the rocks used to make it had slid more than 20 feet down the slope the hill was sitting on. We knew immediately we had our work cut out for us. The original was constructed by standing a few flat rocks vertically and pounding rebar in behind them to hold them up. The wall was built on a slope approaching 45 degrees. It was no wonder that the wall fell over backwards.
We started by benching the hill to construct a solid, flat platform to build the wall on. We then dry-stacked the local shale so as to create a much more solid wall than the original. We quarried stone from the creek bed at the bottom of the ravine trail. Resources were plentiful, but moving them up the tall, steep hill was a challenge. It took four days to finish the wall, but we left with an incredible sense of accomplishment.
We could only have three people working on the wall at a time because there was simply no room on the steep slope for any more than that. So when the two extras were not quarrying for materials we worked on some improvements on the Ravine trail. We brushed and cleared the entire ¾ mile loop, installed 4 drain dips, re-established 210 feet of out-slope, and benched 50 feet of trail.
After finishing up the Ravine trail we headed over the to Burnt Hill trail to clear out some multi flora rose that has been giving horse riders a problem. In addition to the rose thorns we had to work around the barbed wire fence they were growing along. This section of the Burnt Hill trail runs along one of the many cow pastures in Finger Lakes National Forest. While the crew cleared the multi flora rose, Scott went to the lumber yard with Marv to pick up materials for the privy we will begin constructing next hitch. The crew has cutting multi flora rose down to a science and finished nearly a half a mile of fence by the time Scott returned from the lumber yard. We quickly finished up the rest and packed it in for the day.
The next morning we went to headquarters and unloaded the privy materials from the trailer and put them inside the shed where they will be protected from the elements until we can build the privy. Afterwards we headed to the Interloken trail and finished the drainage structures we started last hitch. We could not complete them at the time because it rained for several days straight making the soil too muddy to dig in. The trail was still very muddy but we were able to make due. After finishing up the drainages we headed further up the Interloken and started the first of four re-routes on the trail. We cut the re-route corridor and finished 90 feet of tread before heading home.
On Sunday the 20th we took a break from trail work to volunteer at an archaeological dig in the forest. We spent the morning getting a tour of the site and learning a little bit about the history of the area. After the tour the archaeology students taught us how to dig a unit. Both Scott and Ellen had previous experience in archaeology and the rest of the crew picked it up quickly. Turns out trail workers are great diggers, who would of thunk it. Unfortunately we did not make any discoveries on this day. Around 2 o’clock the archaeologists headed over to the office to was and categorize artifacts so we went back to the Interloken trail to finish our re-route. We were just able to finish the last 60 feet of trail before thunder and lightning forced us to pack it up around 4:30.
On the last day of our second hitch we went back to the Ravine trail to finish up a small section that needed corridor work. Afterwards we headed back to the Interloken trail and cut the second re-route. We finished the 66 foot re-route just in time for lunch. After lunch we spent the rest of the day cleaning and sharpening our tools and reporting our hours to AmeriCorps.

Progress Report:

Program Name: Finger Lakes National Forest
Dates: 5/31-6/9/2010

Brushed and cleared Interloken trail (2 miles)
Brushed and cleared Backbone trail (1 mile)
Brushed and cleared South Slope trail (.5 miles)
Brushed and cleared George trail (.25 miles)
Brushed and cleared Finger Lakes trail (.5 miles)
Installed Drain Dips (2)
Prepped turnpike materials
Cut rebar (70 pcs.), landscape fabric (140 feet)
Carried turnpike materials to worksite (20 6X6’s .5 miles)

We spent our first day setting up base camp, meeting the USFS staff, and scouting worksites. Rebecca Wright, our agency contact pointed out some trouble spots where horse users were complaining they could not get through the trail. We spent the first few days brushing and clearing these trouble spots on the Interloken and Backbone trails. Scott used the chainsaw to clear a large (14 inch) tree that had fallen across the north end of the Interloken trail blocking access to horseback riders. Both the north end of the Interloken trail and the Backbone trail were completely overgrown with multi-flora rose. We were all pretty scratched up by the rose thorns by the end, but we managed to cut back the multi flora rose off the trail.

After taking care of the trouble areas we moved on to one of our top priorities, the southern end of the Interloken trail to the Burnt Hill trail. The trail runs through mature forest so brushing and clearing the corridor was fairly easy. There wasn’t much underbrush like on the Backbone and the north end of the Interloken, and thankfully no multi flora rose. On Saturday the 5th of June we started building two uphill-side ditches to help dry up so very muddy areas on the Interloken trail. We have not finished them because it rained for the rest of the hitch and the soil became too muddy to work with.

We spent the rest of the hitch brushing and clearing the Southslope trail, the Gorge trail, and prepping turnpiking materials for future projects. The crew spent about a day and a half on the Southslope and Gorge trails. Scott left one afternoon to pick up 6X6’s for turnpiking. On the 7th and 8th day of the hitch we carried 20 6X6’s up the Gorge trail and the Interloken trail to our turnpiking sites. We had to do the half-mile trek 10 times to get all the 6X6’s in. It was hard work. We had to climb some pretty steep hills and navigate some narrow trails to get them in. Everybody was exhausted. We couldn’t even stay awake long enough to watch the sun go down on those nights.

Kevin is participating in an SCA program for the second time, the first during the summer of 2008 maintaining trails and monitoring campsites in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in Idaho. He is passionate about conservation work and hopes to land a permanent job in one of this country’s many beautiful parks and forests. He graduated in 2009 with a B.S. in Natural Resources Management and is thrilled to apply this knowledge in the Finger Lakes National Forest. He is also passionate about photography and frequently carries his digital SLR into the forest with him.

I was born and raised in one of the most beautiful states in the U.S., West Virginia. As a child the outdoor recreation was endless, from fishing and hiking to kayaking. Growing up this way I naturally wanted to work on the forest, I could not imagine sitting behind a desk for the rest of my life. I’m currently a student at West Virginia University, studying Parks and Recreation. I heard about the SCA over a year ago through a friend who had been involved in the High School program. After checking it out online I knew the SCA was where I belonged. I feel fortunate to be here and I know it will only help be get ahead in my field of study.