Indian Boundary Recreation Area

The Indian Boundary Recreation Area is a developed and a primitive camground situated around a lake just off the Cherohala Skyway at the base of Flats Mountain within the Tellico Ranger District of the Cherokee National Forest. There is a beach near the campground and a hiking/mountain biking trail circles the lake. A well stocked store is in the campground.

Friday, February 27, 2009: I worked with Mary Jane and the first Spring Breakaway group of the season last Friday. We got a start on preparation work on IBRA by cleaning bathrooms, picking up limbs in all of the campsites, and cleaning out the leaves and limbs from one of the stopped up culverts.

Here is my time for the day:

Ken Jones: Travel Hours = 2 Work Hours = 4 Total = 6

Friday, March 13, 2009: Robert Thomas and I had another great group of over 40 college students on Spring Break to work with today, thanks to Ed and Arleen Decker. We started the day with an orientation by Leslie Smith at the Ranger Station, and then proceeded to Warden Fields to begin picking up trash down Citico Creek. Following a safety briefing and starting the trash pickup, Robert and I went to Indian Boundary to saw two trees off the Lake Loop Trail. I had received a good report from Bob Lee that these trees were located about ½ mile in from the end of the road going by the Overflow Camping Area. It turns out that they were located very near the gated road. We cleared the two trees and also noted some trail damage near the gated road. A culvert had stopped up causing water to run the middle of the trail for about 100’ washing away all of the chat. We will need to unstop the culvert, fill the damaged run with chat, and also dig a dip in the trail at the culvert to help prevent future problems.

After finishing work at Indian Boundary, we rejoined the group picking up trash at the Crane Island Campsite. Following lunch at Jake Best Campsite, we had to drive one trailer load back to the Ranger Station and return back to the group for a second load. For the day the group collected over 60 bags of trash and a lot of loose metal and pieces of old carpet. The rain held off for the day and everyone finished the trash pickup safely.

It is my understanding that Mary Jane will add the college student’s volunteer time and effort to the Tellico River Cleanup. Robert has a list of all of the students, so I will just keep up with my time for the day.

Travel Hours = 1.5 Work Hours = 6

Monday, April 20, 2009: Robert Thomas and I got to work yesterday with the last of the Spring Break Groups sponsored by Ed and Arleen Decker. This group was from Holyoke High School in Massachusetts, and they were a great group of hard workers. We started work on a water damaged spot on the trail on the back side of the lake. During the winter a plugged culvert had overflowed and ran down the trail for several hundred feet, washing the chat out of the middle of the trail. We opened up the culvert, dug a water diversion across the trail to hopefully handle any future overflow events, and back filled chat to smooth the trail surface in the washed out area. We reclaimed a majority of the chat from the ditches, and Robert and I only had to go get one truck load of chat from a storage pile to finish the job.

After lunch we had the group go pick up limbs from all of the campsites for the A and B loops of the campground. Thanks go to the following volunteers that made short work of this trail project:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	5.5	7.5
Ed Decker	2	5.5	7.5
Arleen Decker	2	2	4
Kayla Lubold	2	5.5	7.5
Jillian Hoey	2	5.5	7.5
Colin Methry	2	5.5	7.5
Nicholas Chapletine	2	5.5	7.5
John Reidy	2	5.5	7.5
Michael Pastern	2	5.5	7.5
BJ Paas	2	5.5	7.5
Paula Johnson	2	5.5	7.5
Jessica Cygan	2	5.5	7.5
Jon Saj	2	5.5	7.5
Totals	26	68	94

Thursday, August 5, 2010: Indian Boundary Loop Trail - We worked on tools and scouting the Indian Boundary Lake Trail Project. Tazz also worked on the Hemlock Project.

The hours are as follows;

Bill Hodge - 6 hours - 1 hour travel
Ken Jones - 6 hours - 1 hour travel
Bobby Mitchell - 6 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Joanne Mitchell - 6 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Roger Taylor - 6 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Tazz Reid - 6 hours - 1 hour travel