Frosty Trail Hardening at Birchbank

 A portion of the Birchbank Trail in the White Hills had turned into a real mud bog due to groundwater seeping out.  At some times it was so bad people just sat down and refused to walk thru it.

Bernie was waiting for us to start

So since this week in January was so mild we decided to tackle some drainage work.  Whoops, things froze up on Friday night.  Mark got started a little earlier than the rest of us and cleared up a birch blow down with the chainsaw further up the hill on the Blue/White connector prior to the beginning of playing in the mud.

It was 24 degrees out Saturday morning and what had been seeping mud was frozen stiff.  But, we brought pick axes, rock bars, trail hoes, shovels and other Instruments of Destruction.  With some digging and probing we were able to pry some frozen rocks loose, dig out the muckiest spots, and place the rocks to harden the trail.

 Lucky for us Shelton is blessed with rocks.  There were a lot to choose from here, but we had to do some prospecting to get the most suitable ones.  Some even had flat faces.  It was kinda like a trails jigsaw puzzle seeing which rocks went together to make some sound footing.

We hardened a number of the wettest spots along the trail.  We also cleared out drainage ditches to let water cross the trail easier.

Bill dug out a slight relocation on the North side of the stream to hopefully get some dryer footing in this stretch.  A few trail users came thru while we were working and liked the improvements.

It was a good morning's work.   The rocks will shift a bit to settle in when the frost melts.  Let's see how it works the next time it rains.  Thanks to Graham, Ellen, Mark, Bill, and Terry for coming out on a chilly morning.  We have two work parties in in January 2021 - we're off to a good start.