Kutt the Krud (getting rid of graffiti)

2015 has been a bad year for graffiti.  It seems that every knucklehead with a spray can or sharpie wants to add his or her initials to something that we built this year.  It would almost be ok if it were good art, but this is not Banksy-caliber work.  When you go scribble all over something a volunteer, or an eagle scout, or your fellow neighbors has built and maintained on their own time then you're just being a jerk.  But we are getting better at removing the stuff.

The Krud-Kutter Graffiti Remover from Home Depot (in the paint section) is pretty good at removing most graffiti.  It took off paint marker from one trailhead kiosk without impacting the Lexan.  The Goof Off remover will take paint off, but it takes longer than the Krud-Kutter.  Goof Off 2 works faster, but it turns some of the plexi-glass hazy so we think it eating that away too.  The Krud-Kutter doesn't seem to harm the plexi-glass.

Someone spray painted this Paugussett Trail sign along Rt. 110 near Indian Well State Park.  Why I don't know.  It was a custom sign that took Connecticut Forest & Parks Association weeks to arrange with the ConnDOT.  And the sign is up high too.  I remembered to bring the Krud-Cutter, rubber gloves, and rags, but forgot I needed a step ladder.  Luckily I have long arms.
 

It took a few applications, but most of the paint came off.  Next time I'll have to bring a step ladder, or Manute Bol.

It's a little harder to remove from porous surfaces, like wood, but the Krud-Kutter works well with repeated applications.  Sometimes you need to use a wire brush.

The map box cleaned up well.  The Trails Committee is planning to fix up this Trail Kiosk at Rt. 108 this Fall.  In the meantime, please keep an eye out and if you see someone messing stuff up say something to them.  There's no magic elves who fix all this stuff, just your friends and neighbors who are trail volunteers.  And if somebody out there really wants to paint something, give us a call because we can use the help.

Find a Way

We've had a lot of problems in the past with the Paugussett Trail at Mayflower Lane; probably more problems in this one spot than in the rest of the trail combined.  Signs torn down, painted blazes on trees removed, city open space landscaped like it's part of someone's yard to confuse hikers, bush and yard waste dumped directly in the trail bed, trees cut down, athletic equipment parked directly in the trailhead so people don't know where to go.  And it's been going on for years.

We're just volunteers trying to help out our town and frankly, we have better things to do with our weekends than keep cleaning up this nonsense.  So after last weeks work party to clean up the Mayflower Trailhead, yet again.  I, along with my daughter Emma, added a nice sign at the trailhead, so that trail users could easily find the trail entrance behind the basketball hoop, and continue their walk through City Open Space at the appropriate location.  This wound up costing me close to $20 in ice cream between Emma and Tyler (who took the picture) at Wells Hollow Farm after our little work party.

The trail marker posts were installed by the Trails Committee the previous week as part of our clean up work party, and after they were up it was just apparent that a small sign would fit nicely when viewed from the cul-de-sac.  It has a little City of Shelton open space sign, and a small Connecticut Forest and Parks Association sign to note who the property owner is that gave permission to put the trail there, and who takes care of the trail.  It didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

Well, some of the neighbors had a major hissyfit about the sign attracting all the riffraff hikers to their neighborhood, contacted one of the aldermen, who rather than fact checking, shot off a scathing and stunningly inaccurate e-mail to the Mayor, who after some back and forth with various Trails Committee members, most of whom liked the sign, decided to take the sign down and remove the neighbor's athletic equipment from the public Right of Way.  Who knew hiking trails could get this dramatic!

So, enjoy your walk, be nice, smile and wave at the neighbors on Mayflower Lane, pick up a little trash along the way, and send in your pictures at the trailhead.to the Shelton Trails Blog.

Switching gears, Sunday was a nice day so why not spend part of it cleaning graffiti of the sign kiosk at the entry to the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path on Lane Street?  Somebody though the kiosk built by Eagle Scouts could be embellished by their initials.  Idiots.  But a little Goof Off and a lot of elbow grease later it was gone.  Somebody also spray painted the Lane Street Boardwalk, and Harriet Wilber's Memorial Bench at the Land Trust Meadow.   It only took some more Goof Off and a wire wheel to clean up that mess.

The Bench is probably a lost cause at this point, but that's up to the Shelton Land Conservation Trust.  They were doing a nice job that morning planting an oak tree supplied by the Olde Ripton Garden Club at the far end of the meadow along the RecPath.  It seems that there's always an arms war between those that want to make their communities better places to live and those who would make them worse places.  This Sunday it was the nice people, who are stubborn and persistent, who came out on top.  And a hundred years from now I hope that peoples grand kids enjoy the oak tree that they planted.

   
The End.  Courtesy of Rich S. and his camera that knows no restraint when trying to capture someones good side.

Acadia Trails - Part 2

Acadia National Park has a lot of signs - some of them funny - this was on top of South Bubble. I wonder how many times people had to roll rocks down the cliff before the Park Service felt compelled to put this one up?

We saw a lot of great trails at Acadia National Park in Maine this summer. There were a lot of innovative trail solutions that would be fun to try here in Shelton.

Emma & Terry at the Cadillac South Ridge Trailhead. The National Park Service uses these routered cedar posts for trailheads to reduce theft of trail signs. Cadillac Mtn. has a road going to the top so we dropped these two off and they hiked down a trail with stunning views and little effort. One of the troubles with Cadillac Mtn is that having the road going to the top takes away a little something from the mountain, but the trade-off is that the public gets to enjoy the park.

This is one of the concrete walks at the top of Cadillac Mtn. The Park Service used pink granite chips in with the concrete to match the distinctive granite of the mountains. Our vacation overlapped the Obama family but we avoided the Secret Service had a great time. The Park Service appears to be doing a good job maintaining the park.

Here's Terry & Biscuit riding bikes on the Carriage Path Roads. The Carriage Paths are 16 foot wide crushed stone roads that were built for horse-drawn carriages, but work really well for bicycles, walkers, dogs, etc. This is similar, but a little bigger than what the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path will ultimately hopefully look like.

This is another view of the Carriage Paths on the Hadlock Brook Loop. There was a lot of disturbance to construct the roads, but the woods have grown in and everything looks very natural now.

This is the Waterfall Bridge that carries the Carriage Path Road over Hadlock Brook. What's amazing to me is that the entire system of Carriage Paths and bridges were built by John Rockefeller Jr. just so he could ride his horse and buggys without being bothered by cars when he went on vacation every year. This was a monumental undertaking that was on par with constructing the Merritt Parkway, and you can see a lot of similarities in the bridge architecture. I think that it's a safe bet to say that the Shelton Lakes Recreation Path will probably not have a bridge that looks like this, but we may have a little nice stonework here and there.

The Carriage Roads used a lot of granite slabs on the uphill sides (left) for slope stabilization and drainage. Granite blocks were used as coping stones on the downhill (right) side for traffic safety - an early guide rail. The roads have a thick base and good drainage system to prevent erosion. There's a nice book titled Mr. Rockefeller's Roads by Ann Rockefeller Roberts that illustrates the history of the Carriage Path Roads.

The hiking trails are well integrated with the Carriage Paths. Here's a nice example of granite stairs with a rustic timber railing leading up to the Path. This looks like something Bob Wilkins could whip out for Shelton.

On a slightly less rustic note - this is a portion of the Brown Mountain Gate House that was created to keep cars off the Carriage Paths. Maybe we could build this in downtown Shelton as an entry for the Riverwalk.

This is the Asticou Map House in Northeast Harbor. It's just out in the middle of the woods over by Eliot Mountain with a map of the park and a bench to sit down.

The Map House didn't seem to have a vandalism problems like we've had in Shelton. Here's a low-maintenance granite bench in the Wild Gardens. This would be the Jim Tate Special that he's talking about installing at different locations along the RecPath. Good luck moving that slab Jim.

There are a number of rustic footbridges on the trails in Acadia. This one is on the North end of Jordan Pond, right before we went up the South Bubble Cliff Scramble. We latter found out that we probably shouldn't of taken a dog up that one, but Biscuit The Trail Terrier made it OK.

One trail we didn't take Biscuit up was the Beehive Trail. Ryan really wanted to hike the Precipice Trail since it is supposed to be the most difficult trail in the park, but The Precipice was temporarily closed due to falcon's nesting (silly reason to close a trail - it just makes hiking interesting). So Emma, Ryan and I climbed the Beehive instead (Ryan actually climbed it 3 times). The Beehive is actually listed as "the ugly little brother" to the Precipice with a series of iron ladders, bridges, and cliff scrambles.

The trail goes up some sections that are so steep the granite stairs are pinned into the ledge to keep the steps from moving.

The trail winds along the face of a cliff with some fun features. Here's a iron bridge over a vertical drop that even Emma was a little nervous about crossing, but she went right over it.

There's a number of iron ladder rungs and handholds set into the cliff face to make it easier to climb. It was foggy and misty when we went up, and later cleared out.

The amount of work that has gone into building Acadia's historic trails is incredible. Just look at the work that went into setting these iron rungs half-way up a cliff, by hand, over a century ago - amazing! The trails are challenging, safe (sort of), and great for families that like to hike. Just be prepared and the worst hazard you may face will be the dreaded "bunny ears".

Acadia Trails

It's always fun to go on a vacation to Acadia National Park. The Park offers some of the best hiking and biking anywhere with the dramatic views from the granite mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. The island has a rich history of highly crafted hiking trails and carriage path roads that is inspiring when it comes to trail building. Here's some examples of various trail construction that we can try around Shelton:

Dorr Mountain is the quiet mountain east of Cadillac Mountain - all the same great views, but without the crowds, because there is no road to the top of it. Here's the trail sign at the large cairn on the Dorr Mountain Summit. There are 5 really stunning trails up the east face that are the highlight of any trip to Acadia.

We took the free shuttle bus to Sieur du Monts Springs where they have the Nature Center, the Wild Gardens, the Spring, and the indian museum. There is a beautiful carved sign at the Wild Gardens and it's worth going in there even if your'e not a big plant person. Their volunteers do a nice job with the place and Teresa came back with some good ideas for the Eklund Native Species Garden.

We hiked out along the Kane Path from the Springs to the Tarn to get to the foot of our climb. The Park Service recently replaced this rustic looking footbridge over a stream.


Ryan & I did Kurt Diederich's Climb this time. The trail was constructed as a memorial in 1916 & contains some of the largest stones used in trail stairs anywhere on the island (and they were all built using hand labor).

There is a great paperback book titled "Trails of History" by Tom St. Germain and Jay Saunders for $14.95 that lists the history of all the trails in the park. One of the amazing facets of Acadia was that most of the land, and a lot of the improvements, such as the trails and carriage roads were built and donated to the Park Service by wealthy individuals and families that enjoyed Mt. Desert Island and wanted to see it preserved. Today it is one of our most heavily visited National Parks. Taking any of these trails will allow you to enjoy the park far from the crowds.

The trail follows a series of faults and cliffs using an ingenious series of granite stairs. It's a fun hike but bring lots of water. The blueberries and huckleberries along the trail were a great treat.

Here's more of the stairs going thru a crevice in a rock slide. And this is only one of 4 trails up the mountain face on this side that are like this. The others are Homans Path, Emery Path, and the Ladder Trail. All show amazing craftsmanship in providing ingenious solutions in scaling the mountain.

We passed two guys from the Parks Dept. trail crew who were on their way back down to mountain to carry up more gear for their days work. We later stumbled across their tool cache & Ry had to model the model the stylish Smokey the Bear hat. The Park guys had to buggylug a gas-powered rock drill, gas, water, bits, etc. on their backs up a mountain, and then go back for more stuff, just to start their work. Talk about logistics! I was sweating just hiking up the trail - those guys really work. We carefully put their stuff back and left them a little something for their trouble. Hope they were able to enjoy a cold one at the end of the day. Support your local trail builders.

Here's a section of granite stairs further up the trail that have been restored. You can see where holes were drilled in the granite boulders, then split using iron wedges and pins. The granite stairs hold up well, but everything takes maintenance after a century of use. The Park Service seems to have put a greater emphasis on restoring some of these historic trails the last few years, and that's a really good thing.

The Climb joins the Schiff Path which gradually winds up to the Dorr Mountain Summit. On one side is the mountain and on the other side just air. It's a really dramatic trail that you would not want to take a wrong turn on in the dark. In a number of places the granite boulders were set like paving stones. It took a lot of work to do this, but it works to prevent erosion.

Here's the view of Bar Harbor from the Schiff Path. I don't know why there's not more post cards, tee shirts and posters of these trails because they are amazing climbs. Sieur du Monts Spring is in the lower right hand corner and The Great Meadow is in the center.


Following the Summit we returned using the West Face Trail, and then went north on the Gorge Trail. The Gorge trail was a cool ravine that was a refreshing change from the hot summit. We had been experiencing some hot, dry weather when we went up, but I can see where the Gorge Trail would be tricky during high water.

We came back and hiked into Bar Harbor. The Jessup Path looks like it got a recent upgrade with this boardwalk.

We walked back thru The Great Meadow using portions of the Jessup Path and the Great Meadow Loop. This trail is an elevated crushed stone path through the marsh & was a unique persective that you don't get when driving by on The Loop Road. This is a good reason to fill in a little wetlands & we saw a nice buck in velvet. Too bad they prohibit dogs and bikes on this trail - Biscuit would've had a great time. Maybe the Parks Service should consider loosening this rule up a bit if people take care of their dogs.

The walk back along the roads into Bar Harbor was most difficult portion of our hike, but at least this hike ended in a trip to the ice cream parlor for a Pina Colada Smoothie. Now we could copy this experience in Shelton with our Shelton Lakes Nature Center, Brew Pub & Ice Cream Parlor..........