The attachment is a picture of the two CMC Friday crews working at Johnson Farms on Dec 17. We cut many large oaks which were blown down by the storms of September helping the Hendersonville School System restore their trail through the wooded part of Johnson Farm. Pizza was served by the School Board marking the first time the Hendersonvile crew had their longstanding wish for pizza delivery accomplished. This marks our last work day for 2004. I hope for each and every one of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Bill

Folks,Just a quick reminder that we will not be working the next two Fridays. I Hope everyone has a great Christmas and a very happy new year.
Skip

John Soldati's Wednesday Work Crew

'Tis the Season. Due to Holidays and cold and scheduled rain for Wednesday, let's stay home with hearth, home and family. We will NOT have Crew next week either...(Wednesday 29th). I will call Charlie. I will get out my annual year end email for the crew in a day or so. Until then, I will see you guys on Wednesday, January 5, where we will plan to tackle the long sidehilling just south of 74A (but more on that in the New Year). JS

nyone interested in joining the trail crews contact: Hendersonville area-Bill Newton, 828-693-4033, Brevard area-Dick Johnson, 828-884-3685, Asheville area-Skip Shelton, 828-891-3264 or Piet Bodenhorst, 828-298-8371, Misha Lazer, 828-259-9729, lazerm@bellsouth.net , Mike Lang, 828-658-1914, mlang626@buncombe.main.nc.us

Save the date - February 5, 2005 - for the FMST Annual meeting in Greensboro, NC. This years guest speaker will be Deirdre F. Hewitt with the RTCA program under the National Park Service in Asheville, NC. She will tell us all about the RTCA program; you can visit here for more info: http://www.nps.gov/rtca/ . The FMST is discussing along with the Department of Parks and Recreation in using this program for the MST East Plan. This meeting of Task Forces has proven to benefit the MST with reports and planning for the new year. Information will be mailed out in the near future about this meeting. Thanks for your time. Jeff Brewer www.ncmst.org

There has been a Sawyer S212 chainsaw certification class set up. The following information should be communicated ASAP as time is short.

WHERE: December 17 Pisgah Ranger Station Conference Room December 18 Pisgah Ranger Station Work Center Shop (east end Of building AKA Carpenters shop)

WHO: 12 (TWELVE ONLY) Persons in need of certification. Class members will be selected from all clubs/crews.

PREREQUISITES: Student MUST have a current First Aid and CPR card in hand on the day of the class. No cards - no class. See class availability schedule attached.

WHAT TO BRING: December 17. Lunch and open mind! December 18. Hard Hat (FS will provide if student does not have). Eye Protection “ ” “ ” “ Hearing Protection “ ” “ ” Leather work gloves Minimum of 8" high leather work boots - This is MANDATORY. Lunch Plenty of water Be prepared for inclement weather. Class will go on in cold weather. Only exception is heavy rain or icy conditions. Field class would then be postponed.

Each crew chief will be notified of selected students by Monday, December 13, 2004.

Additional S212 classes and re-certification classes will be announced as soon as classes can be set up. There is a new FS rule that requires one instructor for each four student. We only have three certified instructors.

This Friday we will help out a neighbor - Johnson Farms. Johnson Farms as many of you know is a farm which was donated to the Henderson County School system several years ago. It is preserved as a site to show the history of Henderson County and how people lived years ago. They suffered storm damage and need help clearing up the mess. As I understand it there are several large trees down that need to be removed. We can do a good neighbor a favor and this would be a good time for our newly trained sawyers to get in some practice on a little better ground than most of our trails. So let's meet at the gate to Johnson Farms - across the road from the middle school on 191 - at 9. Note the VERY late start time - I want school traffic to clear out before we get there. And besides, its cold out there. Would like as many recently trained sawyers out as possible - this should be a good chance for some of the more experienced sawyers to work with the newer ones. This will be our last outing for the year. I am authorizing paid holidays over Christmas and New Year's. As ever, please let me know if you will be out this week. Bill

Just returned from Johnson Farms. There are many trees (maybe 40?) down that they would like cut. I am trying to locate a logger who may want to come in and remove the logs - don't know if I will have any luck with him or not. But what we will do tomorrow is remove limbs and drop some that are hung above a short trail they have. There are some we will not cut because they are too dangerous - need a pro for them. If I can locate the logger, we will cut the trees into 12 foot lengths - maybe 12'6" or so - which will make good lumber logs for him. Or we may cut some of the smaller ones into firewood length. Main thing we are after on this trip is to make the area around their trail safe for children as they have large numbers of them frequently. Pizza is served at 11:30 - How's that for service??? We can use lots of saws tomorrow. I would like our newly trained sawyers to do lots of the work, but there is enough for anyone trained who would like to run a saw tomorrow. Others will be needed to clear and as best we can stack the wood to make it safe. See you at 9 in the front parking lot of the farm. Anyone not familiar with the farm, there are two drives - one for exit another to enter on the south end of the farm. The farm is located across from the middle school just south of the traffic light - a large brown sign shows the way. Skip - let your crew know what's going on. Bill

Folks, We have a little problem with our workday this Friday. All our job sites are covered with snow and/or ice, so we can't get to them. I have sent a note to Bill Newton asking if their crew can use any help this week, and as soon as I hear back from him, I will let you know. This will be our last workday for the year, as the following two Fridays are Christmas eve and New Years eve, so I would like to get out if we can. Keep an eye on your E-Mail, and I will send out a note as soon as I hear from Bill. Skip

Folks, This is the work Bill's crew is doing this Friday. I suggest we join them. Forest Service office would be a good place to meet for the Asheville folks who want to carpool. I would suggest around 8:15. Johnson Farm is located in Hendersonville on Highway 191 just past West Henderson High School. You would go to the intersection past the Mills River restaurant and turn Left on Rt. 191 toward Hendersonville It's on the left about a mile from this intersection. Hendersonville people just go straight to Johnson farm. Digging tools would be the best thing to bring. Please let me know if you are coming. Skip

John Soldati's Wednesday Work Crew

Either there will be sidehilling in at 74A OR Don may want to go back to MST above the spring at Rattlesnake Lodge...so he should direct where you go. Reply to Don: dlcsmc@charter.net Have a good one. JS

Post Work report: You guys will be may notice that I'm sending a copy of this post trail report to the MST Section Trail Maintainer, a man or women by the name of Beverly Van Diver so you will have to forgive my politeness, which is very unusual. Having Mr. Walton on the Crew makes for easy learning and this was his very gracious suggestion...let's get friendly (heaven forbid) with the section trail maintainers...We will EVEN begin to invite them out (sometimes) to join us...(maybe they will bring the beer. A great day to be outdoors with the heavy, long rains clearing out. Park at Tanbark Tunnel and hiked with a full Crew of 7 (all heavy hitters) up beyond the spring on the MST to rebuild trail...4 steps, 187 feet of sidehilling, plus one 22 foot, 3 and 1/4 inches of quality cribbing (installed the proper way). A saw team removed 6 trees and one bad snag from the MST and the south access trail to T. Tunnel (thanks to Barth Brooker). One of our Crew dropped off at the very beginning as we started up the north access trail and cleaned 47 water bars of which 3 were on the MST above Rattlesnake Lodge (good show, Don C.) Don't know how the cold beer was left out of the truck and for some reason it probably has to do with Bill Newton. Outstanding performance today on trail building, tree removal, step cutting and installing. Thanks guys. Official Report follows.

Hi all, Alan Frank and I went to the FS road log site and recovered the carts, log carriers and cant hooks on Saturday afternoon. There was about 3-4 inches of snow at the gate so we decided to walk in which was a good move because there was about 5-6 inches at the site. We warmed the padlock to open it, then strapped the rear cart to the front one and loaded the rest of the parts at that cache onto the carts. We pulled all of it to the road with a rope and then loaded the carriers and hooks. Pulling and pushing all of this through the snow was really fun with frequent stops to puff and otherwise rest. We started in at the gate at 1:40 and had it all in Alan's truck at 2:20. It is now all behind my house with the roofing. We did not find and bring out the long handle for the rear cart and the axle clamps for the front cart. I assume these are still there but covered with snow. We will get them when the snow melts.

I will make sure everything is in good shape before we start the process in the Spring so we can complete the construction of the shelter. We accomplished a lot in the few times we were able to work on it which makes me confident the work will go well when we start again. I will keep in touch and lets's hope for an early Spring. Howard