Post St. Patricks Day Party (Work Party that is) at Woods End Trail

In honor of St. Patrick's Day we broke out the traditional Irish utensils of delicate work:  the Pick and Shovel.  It was a great morning to clear out the Woodsend Avenue entrance to the new trail at Housatonic Preserve, and continue benching in some sidehill trail sections.  The weather was dry and sunny for a change.

Since we had a lot of folks we split up into groups.  While one gang tackled the entry at Woodsend Ave., another jumped up past the plateau and started benching in the trail down to the boulder crossing.  There were few rocks to dig out out and a few tree roots to cut.  And by a few we mean dozens and dozens, dozens.  At one point a volunteer said something like "there are so many rocks and roots on this hill".  Yup, welcome to Shelton.

But the gang did a nice job and after a while a trail tread started to emerge from the side hill slope.  We worked to make a stable tread, with a slight outslope for drainage and to protect against erosion.

Mike and Teresa are going over the best routes to cross the stream and how to relocate rocks and boulders for improving the footing.  Luckily, this being Shelton, we had several rocks to choose from.  Then all we had to do was move them in place.  Lucky us.

Misha worked on moving rocks to make stable steps though the boulder field.

Terry and Mike rearranged the boulders

Afterwards, we had a stable, benched-in trail along the hillside from the top of the cliffs down to the stream crossing.  There was a lot of heavy rock moving.   There was also one group of volunteers cutting logs and blowdowns up by Sinsabaugh, and another crew cutting out the entrance at Woodsend Avenue.

At Woodsend Ave the briars were cut back, leaf piles were removed so the road drainage was clear, fallen tree limbs were cut, vines cleared, and the access trailheads were cut out.  It no longer looks like an abandoned jungle.  And some of the neighbors stopped by and were positive about the clean-up, which was really appreciated.

A lot was accomplished today, and it was not easy work moving rocks in the mud.  There's more to do next week; including pulling out the tractor tires, 55 gallon drums, truck cab, more cutting, benching in, drainage improvements, and you guessed it; pick and shovel work.  Should be fun.

Thanks to everyone who came out today; Abby, Annie, Bill, Bob, Luis, Mark, Matt, Mathew, Michael, Mike, Ted, Terry, Teresa, and Val.  Lots of help gets lots done quickly.  And everyone came out in one piece with no flattened fingers or toes while moving all the rocks.  

If anyone has better pictures of the rest of the work party you can share them in the Comments section below.