The first 9-day project went off without a hitch. No pun intended. Except that it was. The crews were out for their first long haul, with folks back at Santanoni and Wilmington, as well as the southeast corner of the park at the Hudson River Recreation Area and Pharoah Lake Wilderness.
1. Santanoni Historic Area
The Santanoni crew this week had the pleasure of hiking into the center of the beautiful High Peaks Wilderness. They spent their time brushing and surveying around 10 miles of trails in the area, as well as putting in an 8-ft bog bridge. They even got to see the legendary "problem bear" known only as Yellow-Yellow as they chased her down with a whistle and a shovel to get their food canister back!
2. Wilmington Wild Forest
At Wilmington, the crew spent their days brushing trails and leveling tread. They worked on the approaches to previously constructed bridges, and built the foundations for a bridge to be completed during future projects. The crew also constructed two water bars lower on the trail.
3. Pharaoh Lake Wilderness
After a plethora of other trail work, including trail brushing, the construction of a small staircase, and cutting a bit of new trail, the pride and joy of this crew was the 30ft bridge they constructed over this 10-day hitch. The bridge included some pretty hefty cribbing for support and decked just in time to finish up the project with some rehabilitation of the worksite.
4. Hudson River Recreation Area
Working along the mighty Hudson for much of the project, the HRRA crew was doing important work at a number of universally accessible campsites. High water levels and flooding in the northeast this past spring made for a lot of work for the crew. They cleared out water access paths of organic material deposited by the flooding river; dug several privy holes, moved the privies, and built new approach paths for them; removed hazard branches from above campsites; cleaned out fire rings and tent pads; and a multitude of other rehab work. The area had seen a number of years worth of overuse issues, but thanks to the work of this SCA crew, the area is looking much healthier!
