News

November 1, 2017

Laurentian Chapter Trail Maintenance Weekend, October 21-22, 2017

Text and photos by John Barron except as noted.

Photo: Kathleen O'Rourke

The Laurentian Chapter undertakes a great deal of trail maintenance and development in our region. The chapter has primary responsibility for two trail system: Stone Valley, under the guidance of Mark Simon, and the Red Sandstone Trail organized by Blair Madore. It has become an annual tradition for Mark to enlist students from the area and conduct a major refurbishment and construction blitz in late October. This year there were large turnouts from SUNY Potsdam Wilderness Education, SUNY Canton Outdoor Adventures Club, and Herman DeKalb Central School Outdoor Club. The event launched from Mark’s barn on the Lenny Road, not far from where two of the crews began their efforts.

Stone Valley East Side Trail

Over the past two years, major volunteer trail work in Stone Valley has focused on a reroute to bypass a section of the East River Trail known as High Terrace, which, while scenic, involved climbs and descents so steep that they were always arduous and under some surface conditions dangerous. This year’s crew removed several trees from the path and leveled some obstacles. The most difficult work involved building a retaining wall to support a short stretch of the trail against sliding downhill into the Raquette River. This was accomplished using native materials found on site, so the first step was transporting heavy rocks and boulders from the river bed up to the construction site. Mark Simon was crew leader, and the participants were students and faculty from SUNY Canton.

Stephen Schermerhorn

L-R, crew leader Mark Simon, Nick Roca

Jocelyn Cortes

Stone Valley East Side Mountain Bike Trail

Mark Simon’s trail segment ended at a now-bypassed steep, rugged staircase leading from the river up to High Terrace. Approaching that spot from the south, following Mark’s newly-constructed reroute, one arrived facing a wild scene of disrupted woods. Clearly the area had been unruly forest filled with deadfall very recently. Now, a line of orange marker flags stretched northwards, and the ground below and along their path was strewn with newly-cut blowdown and the roughly scratched in outline of a new trail. About a hundred yards into this rugged worksite, crew leader Eli Smith and a couple of volunteers from Herman DeKalb Central School were completing a wooden framework to give structure to, and help level, the new trail. They explained that this segment was planned and designed especially for the needs of mountain bikers. Their four other companions, two from Herman DeKalb and two from SUNY Potsdam were another hundred yards ahead, roughing in trail from one of the Lenny Road access trails to link up with the evolving East Side Trail near the staircase.

Crew leader Eli Smith

Hermon-DeKalb faculty member Jonathan Pabis

L-R, Elisa Drazek, William Scofield

Rock Climbing Site

Snow Bowl State Forest in South Colton features a small but challenging rock face that’s popular with local climbers. The face is accessed by a short abandoned woods road that is prone to erosion. A crew from SUNY Potsdam Wilderness Education, led by faculty member Adam Wheeler, continued efforts of previous years to construct a drainage ditch alongside an improved walking path in the old roadbed. This year more attention was given to trying to discourage access by off-road vehicles, which contribute to the deterioration of the trail.

Miranda Bell

L-R: Molly McClenon-Grant, Rebecca Augustine, Nelson Torres, Miranda Bell

L-R, Tom Macula, crew leader Adam Wheeler, Noah Primus, Molly McClenon-Grant, Miranda Bell, Rebecca Augustine, Nelson Torres

Azure Mountain

Photos and text by Sean Kelly

Students from SUNY Potsdam’s Wilderness Education Program Planning class as well as students from a First Year Success Seminar spent Friday October 20th and Saturday October 21st doing trail maintenance at Azure Mountain. On Friday October 20th, crew leader Sean Kelly, Matthew Raplee and Andrew Barone met with Friends of Azure board member Joe Berner to hang trail signs and discuss projects for Saturday. On Saturday October 21st, Sean, Matt and Andrew worked on routine trail maintenance with Alexander Wilson and William Stephens. These students cleared out water bars, brushed in trail and hung two new arrow signs.