Eversource Relo - The Change of Seasons

 

We had a change of seasons this week in Shelton.

Last weekend, we started doing a relocation of a portion of the Paugussett Trail that currently crosses the Eversource powerlines north of Buddington Road.  Eversource is planning a major construction project in 2023 that will build 2 big new monopole transmission towers where the trail goes now.  In many cases we can't move the trail, but here Teresa Gallagher flagged out a route around this spot and we started cutting it out on 11/12.    There's more info on Eversource's project here.

The night before we had the remains of Hurricane Nicole blow thru dumping lot of rain, and the fear was that we would be washed out.  But most of the storm blew out in the morning and it was Game On.  We had 6 folks out cutting thru a mountain laurel thicket.  It got hot, and sunny.  Everybody was sweating.

Getting thru a Laurel thicket is challenging because it's dense, and it can be tough to see what you're doing.  This one was at the base of cliff with wetlands on the downhill side.  We wanted to stay out of the wetlands, so the footing would be good once we're out of this year's drought.

Bob, Mark & Luis were looking at different options.  Mark was down to his tee shirt and Bob was dying in 4 layers of shirts.  It later got up to 72 degrees and sunny that day.

But we punched thru the worst part using loppers, handsaws, chainsaw, and rakes.  Remember to bring water to a work party even in November or winter.

Fast forward a week to 11/19/22 to finish the relocation and what do we have.  27 degrees and snow!

Maybe not 5' in Buffalo NY snow, but a cold and slippery coating of the white stuff none the less.  Goodby Summer, Hello Winter.  Fall 2022 lasted 7 days I guess.

We made our way into the woods and picked up where we punched thru last weekend.  Ellen lead on group cutting and raking.

Mark took the brushcutter out to where we stopped and did a little weedwhacking in the snow.  

Trenton & Tammy were raking and clearing up that stubs from last week.  Others starting working up a switchback route up a wooded hillside with good views of the adjacent swamp and woodlands.

Our snowy route thru the woods; trying to find the least slippery way across the rocks.

Graham and Bob were clearing the hillside, while Mark when back to do some more chainsawing.

Annie and the others did a fine job clearing and raking the new trail.  It should look really nice in June when the Mtn. Laurel blooms.

What's a little snow to these volunteers.  The sun came out and started to warm things up.
 

We finished up before lunch with the relocation all connected and carted all our gear back to John Dominick Drive.

So everybody made it out, invigorated,  and ready to start the rest of their day.  Thanks to Annie, Trenton, Tammy, Graham, Mark, Bob, Terry, Bill, Luis, Ellen and Mike for these two work parties.  And thanks to Teresa for the planning, layout and fine tuning.  She was leading another group of volunteers closing up Eklund Native Garden nearby at another snowy work party.  After this Mark & Ellen went to take care of some other cleanups on the RecPath and Oak Valley Trail. 

We have some great volunteers working on our trails in all seasons.  On this job is was 3 seasons in one week; which is a little extreme, but so be it.  Join us on Sunday 11/27 at 1:00 for the Turkey Trot Hike.  Maybe it'll be Spring.  See the Trail News and Events page for more info.  Happy Thanksgiving.