First Trail Workday at Eno River State Park - Oct 3
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009We now have approval to construct a new section of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in Eno River State Park, and works begins on Saturday, October 3rd from 9 am to 4 pm. We hope you’ll join us that day!
Work involves constructing new natural surface hiking trail, and will involve clearing brush, moving logs, picking up debris, and constructing the trail surface.
Tools will be provided. Please RSVP to fred.dietrich@duke.edu.
Please wear work clothes, and bring a bag lunch, plenty of water, hiking boots, work gloves, sunscreen, and insect repellent.
All volunteers under the age of 18 will need a signed permission slip, and must be accompanied by an adult volunteer. Individuals and groups welcome.
Meeting location: Eno River State Park Cabe Lands Parking lot on Howe street, off Sparger Road. Parking is limited. Please car pool when possible.
How we build trail at Eno River
Stage 1 - By the time you arrive at the worksite the approve flag line is done with surveys tape (pink or orange) tied to trees. Small “stake flags” are placed in the ground about every 8 to 10 feet to show where the trail tread is to be placed. All of the chainsaw work of major trees is complete as well.
Stage 2 - A team of people with fire rakes or garden rakes come along and remove the leafs and duff from the ground by following the small stake flags.
Stage 3 - A team of people with cutter mattocks come along and hand dig the trail tread into place at a width of two feet wide. The overall goal is to have a nice flat trail (with a small degree of slope to allow for waterrunoff) to hike on that is root and rock free.
Stage 4 - A team of people with fire rakes come along and do the fine detail work to remove any small roots or correct any tread issues that were accidentally left out from Stage 3.
Stage 5 - A team of two or four people remove the stake flags to be used further down the trail. At the same time white blazes are painted on the trees to guide a hiker on the final trail route.
Trail Quotes at Eno River:
“Water is the number 1 trail enemy” - Bad water erosion problems lead to huge trail issues. If the trail tread is constructed properly water erosion will not be an issue.
“Quality is better than Quantity” - Great quality trail means that we will not have so many future trail maintenance issues in the long term. We must build quality trail instead of seeing how far we can accomplish in one day
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