Dear PWC North Country Trail Adopters,
First off, THANK YOU for helping us maintain the North Country Trail in the Peter Wolfe
Chapter section of the trail! We hope you are willing to continue to help us clean up and
maintain the trail this summer! If you can not, please let me know asap so we can
make arrangements for that segment to be worked. We want all of our PWC trail to be
Safe, Findable and Hikeable! You can find a map of your adopted segment here:
http://www.northcountrytrail.org/pwf/trail_segment_links.htm
I am sorry to say that the PWC did not get any of our 8 proposals for puncheon funded
in this round of Mi Iron Belle grants, click here to see what was funded; mostly bridges
in higher traffic areas. We do hope to get a Type 3 structure funded in seg 34 by NCTA.
Fun news: We have a larger number of hikers expected this year than in past years
with the hikers who are working on their NCT Hike 100 mile Challenge in 2016, in
addition to several long distance thru hikers. Many will want to be on the trail early this
spring to beat the summer mosquitos! So as soon as the weather and conditions
permit, please try to get to your trail, and make sure your first time out in the spring
that your segment of the trail is Safe, Findable and Hikeable! When you are on your
trail, think in terms of being a stranger hiking thru your section of trail with a heavy
pack on your back with your tent, sleeping bag, food, water and the like. What will they
find? Can they easily follow the blue blazes from one end to the other both going east
and west on your section of trail? So your first time out for the season, please try to get
to your entire adopted trail in both directions. Bring blazing materials (even if that is
just temp blue ribbon until you can get back later with paint), loppers and hand saws
etc. For reference, the *Pre Memorial Day tasks are copied below this email
(copied from the online NCT Handbook for Maintenance here; scroll to page 84.)
If you are new to blazing, or even if you are familiar with blazing, please watch this
short video of how to blaze the NCT and also check out Bill Menke’s printed guide to
blazing. If you would like to have someone join you on your section of trail to show you
how to maintain or blaze the trail, please let us know! Remember, the blazes should be
5 feet high, so if you are replacing broken plastic blaze with paint, remove the plastic
FIRST so the new painted blaze will still be 5 feet high.
If you need blazing materials or any other tools to maintain your segment of trail,
please let us know asap as we plan to hand out these items to our adopters at our
Annual General Membership meeting and presentation on Thursday, May 12th at
6:30pm in the Forestry Building at Michigan Tech. Attached is a list of tools we either
have on hand or can order to be used on the NCT; if you let us know asap we can add
them to an order.
Our trail adopter webpage has lots of info for you:
http://www.northcountrytrail.org/pwf/adopt.htm After your initial spring clearing and
blazing, we would really appreciate it if you can return to your trail as time permits, and
widen the trail of brush and work on the tread etc. to help bring our trail up to
standard. Also, let us know if the signs need repair/replacement or if board walks or
bridges need to be installed/repaired/replaced and the approximate distance those
would have to span; pictures would help us to see those places needing extended work.
The Forest Service plans to offer a FREE day long chain saw certification class this
spring/summer, date TBD. If you would like to use a chain saw on the NCT trail, please
let me know asap that you want to take the cert class. If the cert class is given this
summer, it is likely that it will not be offered again for 3 years when the certs will
expire, so it is important to sign up for this one! A First Aid/CPR certification is also
needed for the Chain Saw certification; you will be reimbursed for the cost of that. Info
on the upcoming First Aid classes at Portage Health are here. You can take the First
Aid/CPR cert class elsewhere if you can find it.
Please keep track of the hours you spend working on the trail, including travel time, to
and from, your trail section. Volunteers are asked to report your own hours worked, as
well as your helpers, on the North Country Trail Association website here:
http://northcountrytrail.org/members/report-volunteer-hours/
Please note, if you are a NCTA member, you are automatically covered by the National
Park Service in case of accidents. However, if anyone helps you that is not a member of
the NCTA, please ask them to sign this form:
http://northcountrytrail.org/docs/resources_docs/301A_interagency_volunteer_agreem
ent.pdf
If there is an accident on the trail where someone is injured, call 911 and please let us
know! We have a form for them to fill out. Please note, if you don’t have a signal for
911, try to text 911; that might work in areas of low signal.
If you know of others who are interested in adopting a section of the North Country
Trail, please feel free to pass this email along to them! We still have some PWC
segments available for adoption. Or after you have maintained your segment, if you
could help on other segments of the PWC, or can use an over the shoulder brush hog
or a walk behind brush hog etc on any/many of our trail segments, let us know! The
PWC has those power tools for your use on the trail after some instruction in their use.
A reminder: We have our PWC Annual General Membership meeting on Thursday May
12th, starting with a meet/greet at 6:30pm at the Forestry Building at Michigan Tech.
We will have a short business meeting, followed by a 7:30 presentation by the Forest
Service on How Climate Change affects the UP Forest. We are hoping you will attend
this meeting and pick up any blazing items or tools, so please let us know what tools
you may need asap so we have it ready.
*The Pre Memorial Day Maintenance list from NCT Handbook is printed below this
message
Thank you for your continued interest in the North Country Trail!
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions
Connie Julien [email protected] 9O6-523-4O57
Trail Adoption Coordinator and Board member, Peter Wolfe Chapter, NCTA
Reprinted from: North Country Trail Maintenance Handbook online, Chapter
9- Maintenance
scroll to page 84:
"FREQUENCY OF MAINTENANCE
Most trail segments need maintenance about three times per
year.
Prior to Memorial Day - This may be the maintenance period that
involves the most work. The objective is to get the trail ready
for the spring hikers. In addition to general trail cleanup,
some of the more important tasks are to:
* Remove tree limbs and fallen trees from the trail, and prune
encroaching limbs as needed.
* Repaint or replace the blazes if they are faded or missing.
(Be sure that they are not obscured by vegetation—consider
growth that occurs before the next maintenance).
* Make sure that all signs and trail emblems are in place and
well maintained.
* Inspect for water in the trail and take corrective action.
* Carefully inspect all bridges—immediate safety needs should be
met and tasks which are too large for immediate action noted.
* Maintain all trailheads, campsites, and other support
structures.
* Keep a list of larger jobs or those that require different
tools that will require attention at some other time.
* Schedule time for major projects that were identified—round up
tools and helpers.
* Pick up litter. "
Connie Julien, PWC Trail Adoption Coordinator
Our volunteers can bow saw by hand thru some pretty big blow downs! Just saw from
both the top and bottom! Get your partner to pull on the other end of the bow saw
when sawing from the bottom. We have very few chain saw certified folks, so we do a
lot of hand sawing each season! Please share your photos with us to put on Facebook!
www.facebook.com/NCT.PWC.MIchigan
See photo below: