So Many Stepping Stones!

 

New Paugussett stepping stones

The Paugussett Trail through the woods of the old Wiacek farm near the High School have been a problem for years. The broad hillside is seasonally wet for a good 300 feet due to hardpan. After building an 85-foot bogwalk for the lower section, work continued gradually up the trail in the form of stepping stones and is now complete.  That's over 200 feet of stepping stones. Some of the stones were already there, but most are new.  The "flash drought" of 2024 turned out to be the perfect time to work in this area. 

The big rock behind the hole will become a stepping stone

Putting these stones in was more arduous than laying patio stones. The rocks were typically 6-9" deep and irregularly shaped. Finding a flat-sided rock of a good size from the woods was a challenge. When you look at a stepping stone, you're only seeing a small portion of the rock, which is mostly underground for stability. A deep hole needed to be dug through lots of tree roots and rocks. Some of the roots and rocks were so large that the stepping stones needed to be spaced to fit around them, or a smaller stepping stone may have been used.

Terry Gallagher dug in some of the rocks.
Note the fresh dirt in foreground.

But before any of that, there was earthwork. Much of the trail had become compacted and sunken, so that it looked like a water-filled moat during mud season. There were obstructions that prevented water from draining off to the side, including stacks of branches and logs that had been tossed just off the edge of the trail to form an accidental dam. There were also a few scattered lines of rocks that had been placed onto the ground years ago during a work party in an attempt to create stepping stones.  These obstructions had trapped soil and rotting leaves, and then tree root had come up through them.  Water flowed down the trail instead of across it. These obstructions were all removed and avenues for drainage re-established. 

Annoying ground conditions before
new stepping stones were installed. 

Buckets of sediments were then spread along the trail so that it was no longer sunken and could drain. This also covered some of the exposed roots and rocks that cluttered the treadway. Speaking of treadway, two treadways were established: A summer tread and a mud-season tread. This isn't common for hiking trails, but the land here is atypical. It's not a classic mucky wetland. It's near the top of a gently sloping, broad hillside covered in a layer of hardpan a few inches down. The water cannot get through the hardpan, but it does gradually drain down the hillside, and it dries out during the summer.  Most people hike during the summer, so a dirt tread option was maintained next to the stepping stone option. 

Two treadways: Wet season and dry season

If you're hiking anywhere and you come upon a bogwalk or stepping stones, you'll see that people will start walking alongside those trail improvements whenever possible. Bogwalks and stepping stones can be slippery, so if conditions are dry enough and there is room off to the side, that's where many people will walk.  The dirt used to fill in the trail mostly came from the area just up the hill where sediments from the trail had been getting washed off of the trail. There had been a whole lot of trail erosion over the past several years and this is where all that dirt ended up. 

Here's a "before" (from April 2024) and "after" in the Pin Oak Grove section near the new boardwalk:  

"Before" (April 2024)

"After" 

Between the bogwalk and the new stepping stones, this section of trail should be a lot easier during mud season!