Hiking the Hammersley

One of the ways KTA benefits clubs is assisting with trail maintenance when Mother Nature gets ahead of us on trails from time to time.   After KTA's Ed Lawrence hiked a section of the Susquehannock Trail System (STS) in Potter County last summer with his wife Cathy and good friend (and former KTA executive director) Paul Shaw, Ed offered to let the Susquehannock Trail Club (STC) host a KTA trail care this May to "Hammer the Hammersley."

 

Pennsylvania has 16 designated "Wild Areas," in which timber harvesting, resource development, and motorized transport of all sorts is prohibited.  At 30,253 acres, the Hammersley Wild is second in size only to the Quehanna Wild, but the Hammersley maintains the distinction of being the state's largest roadless area.  This honor creates a challenge for trail maintenance, because the STS passes through the Hammersley on 10 miles of trail with no road access for trail crews.  With a five mile hike in to the center of the Hammersley, and another five mile hike out, most of the local STC maintainers have no time or energy left in a work day to do pulaski, chain saw, brush-cutter, or even lopper work in the center stretch of the trail.   Trail work might get done three miles from the roads on each end, but the center four miles of the stretch would see tools and trail-crews quite infrequently.

 

Under the direction of STC president (and KTA vice president) Wanda Shirk, 34 workers put boots on the STS ground over the weekend of May 17-19.  Ole Bull State Park donated the Group Camping Area for the volunteers, and some who arrived early enjoyed hiking the two-mile trail around the park, viewing the beach and swimming area along Kettle Creek, and visiting the vista where Norwegian violinist Ole Bull once began building his home for the short-lived, ill-fated nineteenth century colony he started there.   

 

Tom Bastian and Ed Lawrence, assisted by thrower Wellis Balliet, put chain saws to work on sections of the Morgan Hollow Trail and Wild Boy Trail on Friday to jump-start the weekend's work.  Mid State Trail overseer Kevin Busko had done preliminary scouting and sent back reports of where blowdowns needed to be cleared.

 

All hands were on deck for Saturday's work detail.  Fifteen KTA workers and eleven STC members signed up, and a Boy Scout leader from Lewistown read about the trail care on KTA's website and brought six hard-working teenagers along with himself and a co-leader to camp in the Hammersley overnight and do trail work on Saturday and Sunday.  The scout troop is preparing to go to Philmont and needed to get some backpacking and camping experience and to log some trail maintenance hours.

 

Most satisfying to STC founding-father and retired forester Tom Fitzgerald was the planting of a sign post at the intersection of the Twin Sisters and Elkhorn Trails on the STS.  The Susquehannock Trail System was created by linking many old trails, logging roads, and railroad grades into one 85 mile loop, and individual trail sections retain their original names.  Tom had made the signs decades ago, from heavy, creosoted wood planks, but never had anyone to carry the post and planks up a steep mile of Twin Sisters Trail and across another mile of plateau to where it needed to be planted.  Carrying the post, sign planks, and several digging tools required a team of strong backs and arms, and a four-man KTA crew, assisted by scouts already under the weight of backpacks, got the materials up the hill and had the sign installed by noon on Saturday.

 

Vegetation in the Hammersley was attacked from both ends of the trail.  On the north end, four men took in brush cutters, one took a Swisher mower, and one took a sprayer, while two women hiked in with loppers, all attacking a serious overgrowth of briars along the trail.  Hikers in shorts and tee shirts need not fear the section this summer:  the path is now four feet wide.  From the south end of the Hammersley, John Zimmer and Tony Robbins took brush cutters up the Twin Sisters Trail and cut back a half mile of laurel that encroached the trail.   A five person pulaski crew pushed all the way to the center of the trail section, to the famous Hammersley Pool -- a section of the Hammersley Fork that is wide and deep enough for swimming even in the heart of summer -- and created new footpath two to three feet wide where a mere six-inch treadway was sliding off the hill.   This crew then left their pulaskis and two pairs of loppers for the scout troop to work with for the remainder of Saturday afternoon and evening, and the scouts brought the tools out on Sunday.

 

Meanwhile, Tom Bastian hiked a chain saw the entire ten-mile length of the Hammersley section and cleared all the blowdowns from south to north.

 

Two-person teams manned other trail sections in the vicinity of Ole Bull State Park.  Jenn Ulmer and Donna Thompson worked from the park to Hungry Hollow.  Lorraine Healey and Diane Buscarini lopped Impson Hollow south of the park, and Dave Taylor and Pete Fleszar cleared a nine mile stretch southeast of Cross Fork.

 

The Susquehannock Trail Club hosted a big feed at the pavilion in the park, with 39 STC and/or KTA members replenishing their energies after the Saturday work.  A big roaster of tender, thin-sliced roast beef for hearty sandwiches was accompanied by a variety of side dishes, from baked beans to mac or potato or lettuce salads, and next to the cold tea and sodas were pies and cakes for dessert.  Those who tented in the park enjoyed evening campfires both Friday and Saturday nights.

 

Eleven workers put in another half day on the trail on Sunday.  Tom Bastian, assisted by Wellis Balliet, cleared blowdowns reported by Pete and Dave from their Saturday lopper-walk.  Joe Healey and Bob Betcher took brush cutters into Impson Hollow, based on needs assessed by Lorraine and Diane the day before, and Lorraine and Diane lopped up the hill south of the park.  Tony and Ed took brush cutters to the lower Wild Boy area and made comfortable, four-foot wide swaths where invasive barberry had overtaken a half mile of trail.  And finally, Joe and Betty Clark and Wanda Shirk, on their second day with pulaskis, went up the Wild Boy trail and turned another section of narrow goat path into a proper sidehill trail with real tread.  When Betty inspects it and says it's okay, then it's okay!

 

 KTA's trailer-load of tools was put to good use over the weekend, and thanks to Wanda Shirk and Ed Lawrence, everything was well-organized.  Temperatures were perfect for working, camping, and -- in some cases -- finding an ice cream cone at Kinney's Store in Cross Fork to celebrate the satisfaction of a job well done.

 

Diane Buscarini said she's adding Ole Bull State Park to her list of favorite places to camp.  And many of the workers agreed with Diane that a KTA trail crew is one of the finest, most enjoyable ways a person could spend a weekend in Pennsylvania in May.