Happy Earth Day from Woodsend Ave.

It was a good morning for a work party at Woodsend Trail.  We had a heavy turnout of volunteers, including a large number of Shelton High School students doing a community clean up for Earth Day.  I think that we had 26 people split up into 3 work groups handling different tasks.

 

High School students with Silvia from Shelton Youth Service Bureau after digging in the trail. 

And this week we tried to match up what people in each group was doing with the tools they carried in.  Rocket science eh!

One Group had it easy.  They had to go about a half mile down into the woods, empty a bunch of 55 gallon drums filled with rocks and dirt.  Bonus;  the lids of the steel drums were welded shut, so they had to be cut open first, in order to empty the rocks and dirt.  But they persisted, and then hauled the drums, plus tires, a steel plate, a truck hood (which had been cut up by Mark and Luis earlier in the week), and taken a half mile back uphill to Woodsend Avenue for pick up by the City next week.

Ethan and Noah hauling a tire up to the pick up site on Woodsend Ave.

They also made some improvements to a stream crossing, and cut brush along the way.

Group Two got to do some digging and dirt hauling.  They made improvements to the earlier benching in the hillside from the switchback to the stream crossing.  The high school students go to use pick mattocks and rock bars to excavate the upper side of the trail and bench it in better.  

The students digging in the trail along the hillside.

 

Other volunteers hauled 5 gallon buckets of soil down to improve the treadway thru the boulderfield.   

Some of the students after benching the trail into the hillside. 

The trail after all the soil had been placed in the treadway thru the boulders.  Much better footing now.

Group Three went to cut barberry and did out skunk cabbage on the end of the trail below Sinsabaugh Heights.   Now that everything is leafing out areas of trail that were formally clear are sprouting skunk cabbage and other vegetation.

 The pile of debris hauled out to Woodsend Ave.

All in all it was a very good work party.  All the goals were accomplished, there were no accidents, we didn't roll any boulders downhill into Route 110, and everyone go to appreciate leverage and teamwork.  Lots of improvements got done and some long standing junk and trash in City open space were removed.  Thanks to Terry, Noah, Ethan, Sam, Logan, Brianna, Gabby, Ellen, Emily, Caitlin, Dimitri, Ryan, Silvia, Luis, Anne, Elaina, James, Tommy, Serenity, Daniele, Ivy, Ralph, Mike, Marcus, Teresa and Bill.  .