by John Stehle
Because of muddy conditions, we spent 3 days putting together a nice mix of trail reroutes in the West Sunbury area, Butler County. In addition, we spent 2 days repairing some trails with switchbacks and improved treadways in State Game Land (SGL) 95 in the Parker area, Armstrong County.
Our work week started on the night of Tuesday, May 31, at Davis Hollow Cabin, where we had dinner and a planning meeting. Trail work started the next day and continued through Sunday, June 5. We had 8 or 9 workers each day, with half of the weekday workers being replaced with a similar group on the weekend.
Near West Sunbury, the trail on the Waste Management property had developed some very muddy sections. We decided to reroute 3 of these sections onto a dryer area. In SGL 95, we replaced a very steep section with a nice switchback section. Our skillful crew also reworked many other old hillside treadways, including rock placements and path cutting, to improve water flow off the slopes.
Each day, the weather was predicted to be rainy, but only on Sunday morning did we actually lose work time (an hour) because of rain. Each night, those who came to the cabin for dinner enjoyed some excellent food from Thompson’s Country Market. Every meal was interesting and delicious.
We had serious, hard work to do, but we managed to complete it all. Many thanks to everyone for a job well done.
