CMC Weekly News

04/06/05

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CMC Help Wanted Opportunity

MST Section Supervisor

We need a supervisor for the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) for the section starting at the Folk Art Center and ending at the Black Mountain Campground. This involves supervising some 10-12 section maintainers in keeping this section of the MST in good trail hiking condition. The rewards include helping volunteers learn how to do basic trail maintenance and working in some of the most beautiful high country in the eastern US. You would be expected to help recruit, train, and help maintain this 30+ mile section of the 932 mile long MST. If interested please contact Don Walton donwalton@bellsouth.net

Mountain Trails by John Soldati

It’s late February and we are working under a weeping gray sky at Bull Gap. The crew is rebuilding a tier of steps that have long sense been dangerous to hikers. Light rainsqualls skip through the gap, making our work somewhat uncomfortable from time to time. We have been out since early morning digging the step trenches for the large four foot six by six inch heavy wooded bars. The Park Service maintenance crew has dropped them off for our use. Each bar is pre-drilled at each end so that an eighteen inch steel rebar can be driven in to hold the step in place. Because there is plenty of rock available, we are filling the risers with crushed rock by throwing large flat stones on the tread and smashing them with sledgehammers. This “crush” will hold the soil and add to hikers stability when crossing this tier of steps. Bull Gap is about three thousand feet and a location that absorbed the major brunt of the hurricanes last September. An adjacent hill just south of the gap looks as if giants were playing pick-up-sticks with large oak, popular, locust and black gum trees. Along the west face of the hill there is not more than eight feet of clear space between fallen and bowed trees. Soon we will be cutting a new section of the MST (Mountains to the Sea Trail) through this devastated forest, a distance of more that four hundred feet, to relocate the trail. So goes this winter’s work. Our crew has been weathered out more Wednesdays than ever before. Snow, rain and high winds have kept us off the trails except for a few days since early January. There is much work to do all around our areas of trail maintenance responsibility. We have had high winds and rain pass through western North Carolina and snows even into early April. When good weather returns it will be fun again to go out without having to abort for frozen ground, rain and snow storms. Soon, we will be pointing our group toward the Appalachian Trail and places like Big Stamp and Whispering Gap. We’ll go up to the high meadows above Street Gap to put large fog and snow blaze posts in to guide the hikers in the pea soup clouds that settle down usually in the early mornings. Our crew will unload at Catpen Gap and trek up to the summit of Bluff Mountain doing winter cleanup on the tread. We’ll be at Walnut Mountain Shelter repairing a latrine roof and floor. While up there we will make a new site for the spring that is almost filled with silt and rock. Lots of work to do in these hills and on the trails and as Robert Frost once wrote: “I’m going out to clean the pasture spring, You come too.” You guys take care out there. J

Smokies Camping Weekend May 6-8 - Registration now open!

Come and spend a week-end hiking in the Smokies in the far western end of the park - too far for a day trip. I just scouted the area and it is beautiful, remote and quiet. We will be based at a private campground in Townsend, just outside the Smokies, accessible for both the Abrams Creek entrance and the Cades Cove entrance. Two levels of hikes will be offered each day. All details are at: http://www.hikertohiker.org/tsmokies/  . If you are interested in coming, sign up now. Unless you have a question not covered by the website, there is no need to email the leader. Just sign up! Danny Bernstein danny@hikertohiker.org

Map Reading course review

Do you know where you are on the trail? Do you know where you have been and most importantly do you know where you are going? On the map reading course led by Dave Wetmore and Tom Bindrim, these were not philosophical questions but practical ones. Eight students - all leaders - met to learn how to answer these questions. Becky Johnson from the Smoky Mountain News also attended. Armed with compasses and a Forest Service edition of the Dunsmore Mtn. topo map, we met at Earthfare for a classroom lecture. Dave and Tom had prepared class notes where we dissected contour lines, ridgelines, grades, creek, gaps and draws. Tom emphasized that our club motto was "Let's Go" but when you think you are lost, the most important thing is to "stop and think". Then it was time to get some practical experience. We were divided into two groups alphabetically and we went out to Bent Creek. I ended up in Dave's group but both groups did the same mini hike. As we walked, Dave kept posing questions and sometimes told us that we had our head in the map too often and we were not looking at our compasses enough. We stopped often and tried to predict what the trail ahead would look like. Would it be steep? Where would the creek cross? As we kept all those balls in the air, the weather deteriorated to rain, snow and a little sleet. Our paper maps were hard to handle with thick gloves and were falling apart. Tom had shown us his system of map preservation which I will use for topo maps. When we got back to the cars, we decided that the course had been definitely worthwhile. I learned a lot of vocabulary and principles. I hope that Dave and Tom run the course again for others and run a more advanced one for us. Danny danny@hikertohiker.org

National trails Day

As you will know National Trails Day (NTD) will be June 4, 2005 across the US. In the past the MST has had around 6-8 worksites across the state. Please consider hosting a work day on the MST. You can go to www.americanhiking.org  and post your event. Once your post your event you will receive free promotional materials from American Hiking Society. Thanks for your time. Jeff Brewer

UPCOMING WORKSHOP TO TEACH ABOUT HOW YOU CAN "LEAVE NO TRACE" WHILE HIKING ON WNC TRAILS

Hiker says lack of preparation stranded group in the Smokies Park rescues four hikers stranded on snowy A.T.! The recent headlines on the incident in the Smokies illustrate the potential for what can happen if hikers don't follow Leave No Trace principle #1. The bedrock principle states "Plan ahead and prepare." Doing just that usually sets the stage for a successful trip for you and for those who follow.

Many hikers claim to know all about Leave No Trace (LNT) and ways they can keep trails in good shape. When you ask them about LNT; however, they often say "Pack it in/Pack it out," referring to their trash. Well, that's really just part of it.

Everyone who hikes probably has met a rowdy group making a lot of noise on the trail or seen hikers feeding wildlife. Have you ever done these yourself? Or, have you wondered what you could say to try to educate them? Leave No Trace is a national program designed to "build awareness, appreciation, and respect for our wildlands." Taking an LNT course will help you identify where you fall on the spectrum of outdoor ethics and will provide tools for educating others.

All hikers are invited to an upcoming LNT Trainer course to be held on the Warren Wilson campus trails in Swannanoa. Ed Raiola of Warren Wilson College and Matthew Davis of the Appalachian Trail Conference will be co-leading a Leave No Trace Trainer Course on Saturday April 30th and Sunday, May 1st on the campus of Warren Wilson College. The course will start at 8am on Saturday and will conclude by 4pm on Sunday. There is a $45 fee for the course, which includes a 1-year LNT membership and other goodies, and the course is limited to the first 10 registrants. For more information on the course or to register, contact Ed Raiola at 828-771-3007 or eraiola@warren-wilson.edu

. For more information on LNT, visit the Center for Outdoor Ethics website at www.lnt.org.

Join New CMC Hike Information Message Center!

The CMC is starting a Hike Information exchange system on www.Yahoo.com  which can be used to exchange information relating to hiking. This group system is intended to help coordinate off schedule hiking activities that benefit the club and it's members. For example, a hike leader may need to scout a hike but cannot find anyone to go along or maybe someone needs directional help to adequately hike a trail.

The email address used to communicate is cmchikeinfo@yahoogroups.com . The address to use to join is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cmchikeinfo/  You have to be a yahoo member (free) to join. When you join you will need to provide your name in the setup in the "Real Name" field. This is desirable for people to know who you are. If you have any questions please contact me. Don Walton