NCT Trail Maintenance
Instead of swimming this past Monday I traveled to a remote portion of the North Country Trail between Herman and Craig Lake State Park to do trail maintenance on the Lynch property with our friend Mark Roberts. We met up in Nestoria with the Peter Wolfe Chapter’s President Connie Julien, another volunteer Joe Youngman, and a crew of AmeriCorps workers. From there we traveled northward, after passing through a locked gate, until we reached the trail. The AmeriCorps workers would be focused on removing small stumps from the trail and Mark, Joe, and I would be sawing trees that had fallen on the trail. Joe had previously scouted out the fallen trees and there was a particularly large tangle that had been created by very large portion of a tree that had sheared off from its trunk and took out other trees in the process.
After tackling this tangled mess, we moved on to the west.
After crossing a creek and cutting out a few more fallen trees, Joe showed us this example of a birds eye maple.
Joe would turn back to ride out with Connie while Mark and I continued westward into the area where we had helped cut the corridor for this trail last fall. We soon reached the location of the large cleaved glacial erratic that is topped by ferns on one half and covered by rock tripe on the other half.
A short distance ahead we came across a place with two fallen spruce. Unfortunately the chain saw started acting up; as a result, we had to cut these out by hand with the Silky saw. This took more time than expected, but we we were soon on our way and into the northern boundary of the Lynch property where we hiked along impressive granite outcroppings. This is merely a sampling of what we saw.
We would eventually reach a short spur that led northward to a really cool shelter with a very scenic view. It was a great place for us to enjoy a late lunch and to get out of the mosquitoes which have been surprisingly resilient in a number of places this summer.
After coming off the spur, we hiked another half mile to reach the point where I had dropped off the car earlier. This trail maintenance/hike added a little over 4 miles toward our #hike100NCT for 2023.
Tuesday would be spent finalizing the presentation I would give on Thursday evening at the Chassell Heritage Center about my experience doing the Border to Border Ski in Finland back in March.
Wednesday would start with a 2,000 yard swim at the MTU SDC followed by publishing Wayne Abba’s remote worker vignette on social media.
You can learn Wayne’s remote work story on LinkedIn at this link and by following the Remote Workforce Keweenaw Facebook page.
Do you embrace winter and have the ability to work remotely? Consider locating in the Keweenaw where you will find ubiquitous natural beauty, no congestion, and lower crime! Learn more by visiting Remote Workforce Keweenaw at https://remoteworkforcekeweenaw.com.