North Fork Citico Creek

Thursday, October 2, 2008: We worked today on logging out blowdowns on the North Fork Citico Creek Trail. I really appreciate Robert Thomas helping out, since that gave us two crosscut saw crews to speed up the work. We parked at Warden Fields, and got to saw our first tree just before the first stream crossing on the North Fork. Robert and I had cleared to a point about 2 miles up the trail last year, but we had some new trees down to keep us busy. At one point in time we had both crosscut saws stuck in the same tree, but managed to recover from this bad situation with a little leverage. For the day we sawed 18 trees off the trail, and cleared to a point about 4 miles up from Warden Fields. We noticed that someone had cleared some small trees with a bow saw recently, and they even cut back some Dog Hobble with a sling blade. We have no idea who it was, but we appreciated the work. It does support my theory that “maintenance begets more maintenance”.

Here are the volunteer hours for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	6	8
Tazz Reid	2	6	8
Jim Holland	3	6	9
Totals	7	18	25

Monday, October 6, 2008: We continued our work on logging out the North Fork Citico Trail yesterday. We drove in to Cold Springs Gap, then walked Fodderstack and Cold Springs Gap Trail for 3.2 miles to intersect the North Fork. From that intersection, we walked downstream for 1.3 miles to the point where we turned around last Thursday. After we ate lunch, we started back upstream clearing blowdowns. For the trip we cleared 16 trees by chopping, using the crosscut, or pushing trees off the trail. We cleared another 1 mile of the trail for the day, stopping at a point just below Old Goat Falls.

When we reached Beech Gap, the gate was standing wide open. It was obvious that a number of people had been driving in to Cold Springs Gap. Someone even drove down the old road from the Gap down toward Swan Meadows on the North Carolina side. I don’t think they made it very far down, since Tazz reports that a stream crossing about 1/3 mile down is impassable with a vehicle. We put a new Forest Service lock on the gate at Beech Gap on our way out at the end of the day.

Here is our time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	3	6.5	9.5
Tazz Reid	3	6.5	9.5
Jim Holland	4	6.5	10.5
Totals	10	19.5	29.5

Monday, October 13: Tazz and I continued work on logging out all of the blowdowns with the crosscut saw on the North Fork Citico Creek Trail yesterday. We went in from Cold Springs Gap on Fodderstack Trail to Cherry Log Gap. We had to saw one new blowdown off the trail before we even reached the North Fork intersection at Cherry Log Gap. All total, we cleared 23 trees for the day, including 2 tops from the trail. This work completed logging out all of the blowdowns on the North Fork Trail. Unfortunately, as we were working downstream on the trail, we did not recognize the last tree to saw. We walked another ¼ mile downhill before we reached another freshly sawed tree and realized our mistake.

On our way out on the Cold Spring Gap Trail, we picked up a lost hunting dog. We were able to reach the owner by cell phone, and tied the dog up at the gate at Beech Gap for him to pick up. We think that he pulled in just as we left there on the Skyway. We also met a BMT through hiker on our way back out. He started the BMT at Springer Mountain last Thursday morning. He was young and traveling light, and had covered 166 miles in 5 days. He said that the worst part of the trail was near Rocky Top on State Line Trail (Nantahala NF), and he was carrying the briar scratches on his legs to prove it.

Here is our volunteer time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2.5	7	9.5
Tazz Reid	2.5	7	9.5
Totals	5	14	19

Wednesday, November 5, 2008: Robert Thomas, Rick Harris, and I hiked about 4 miles up the North Fork Citico Creek Trail yesterday to look for a possible resolution to a problem spot on the trail. This problem spot is where the current trail is routed with a 37% grade for 50’ on the fall line to intersect the old railroad grade at a higher elevation above the stream. This steep grade poses a fall potential to hikers, especially those with a backpack. We went up the existing trail to intersect the old railroad grade, and then walked the railroad grade back downstream. This segment of the railroad grade has two switchbacks, and our trail map in the files shows the trail location on this very segment of the railroad grade. I believe that the current more dangerous route is the result of hikers shortcutting these switchbacks, and the shortcut has become the de facto trail. We found that the old railroad grade would make a much better trail route, and would require no ground disturbance to open it back up as the trail route. It would require a minimum of maintenance work to log out blowdowns and brush out the route. We would need to place two signs to make sure that people use the railroad grade route. We could use locust post from available dead and down material, and route some spare redwood wilderness signs from available material at the Ranger Station. We believe that these signs would meet the criteria for wilderness class 2 trails, since they would be required for visitor safety and not for information only.

By restoring the trail to the original railroad grade route, we also add back a unique experience to the trail. This railroad grade is the only spot on the trail where visitors would have a high elevation view down to the stream, as well as enhanced distant views of the ridge tops. The old railroad grade also has the added benefit of eliminating two crossings of the North Fork on the current route. I have attached a picture of the old railroad grade route.

Here are the volunteer hours for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	5.5	7.5
Rick Harris	1	5.5	6.5
Totals	3	11	14

Thursday, February 26, 2009: We worked on some miscellaneous projects for the day. We started by walking up the South Fork Citico Trail and then turned up the North Fork to the old flow measuring dam. We disassembled the old cable cart enough to get it off the cable. It turns out that it was mostly aluminum, so we were able to haul it back down the trail with two people on the front and two on the back. There was no way that we could get it through the steep side slope section of trail, so we kept on the old road bed all the way to the Citico crossing point into Warden Fields. We will need to wait on a lower water level and probably pull it across the stream with a rope.

After that project, we decided to go to Farr Gap and pick up all of the trash left by the hunters. On the way back down the Doublecamp Loop Road we cleared several trees that were partially blocking the road. We then went to Jake Best Campground and looked at a large hazard tree that needs to come down. It looks like this tree is 36” DBH or more, so it will need the big chainsaw to safely fall the tree.

Here are our volunteer hours for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2.5	5.5	8
Tazz Reid	2	5.5	7.5
Jim Holland	3.5	5.5	9
Ed Ley	4	5.5	9.5
Bobby Mitchell	2.5	5.5	8
Totals	14.5	27.5	42

Friday, March 20, 1009: Robert Thomas and I got to work with another large group of college students from Colorado State, Keene State, and the University of Kentucky this past Friday. They were a part of the Alternative Spring Breakaway groups sponsored by Ed and Arleen Decker. Since we had a large work crew of 29, we spent the day hauling in lumber to repair the foot bridge for the North Fork Citico Trail. The bridge is located about ¾ mile from the road, and we had to move 55 pieces of 2” x 6” x 10’ lumber plus 2 pieces of 4” x 4” x 8’. Ed Decker had the excellent idea to form a “board brigade” by spacing out the workers about 200’ apart and passing the boards up the line to the end point. The idea worked well and we completed the work trip by about 2:30 in the afternoon. It was so great to have the help of a large group for this project. Robert and I had discussed how we would do this project with just a small group of us, and it seemed almost an insurmountable task.

Thanks go to Ed and Arleen Decker for sponsoring this service project. Here are the volunteer hours for the group:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2.5	6	8.5
Ed Decker	3	5	8
Arleen Decker	3	3	6
Elizabeth Willett	3	5	8
Nora Squires	3	5	8
Lynda Matusek	3	5	8
Julie Knudsen	3	5	8
Kristen Johnson	3	5	8
Aaema Athar	3	5	8
Candace Tomes	3	5	8
Sarah Kyser	3	5	8
Abby Larsen	3	5	8
April Millage	3	5	8
Tisa Kunkee	3	5	8
Chandi Aldena	3	5	8
Rebecca Spicer	3	5	8
Ivan La	3	5	8
Catie Bisson	3	5	8
Brigitte Gray	3	5	8
Ellen Estabrook	3	5	8
Mia Hulslander	3	5	8
Kyle Larrabee	3	5	8
Kelsey Davison	3	5	8
Mackenzie Davison	3	5	8
Joseph Mintel	3	5	8
Julia Hecht	3	5	8
Marisa Tomao	3	5	8
Jackie Clayburgh	3	5	8
Totals	83	139	222

Thursday, April 2, 2009: We had a great group of volunteers, plus Robert Thomas, to work on replacing the decking on the foot bridge across The bridge over South Citico Creek on the North Citico Creek Trail the South Fork Citico Creek today. We had previously used a large group of college students on Alternative Spring Break to haul the lumber in to a spot near the bridge location. Prior to starting work we had a tailgate safety meeting to discuss the special hazards associated with potential falls as we removed decking and replaced it. As we began to fit the new decking down we discovered that I had made a large mistake. I was so concerned with getting the length of the bridge measured correctly that I assumed the incorrect width of the planks. The old decking was 2” x 8” and I had thought that it was 2” x 6”. We were able to lay out a recovery plan that used 6 planks across instead of the original 5 planks. The only problem was that we were short by 5 pieces. We were able to finish re-decking the bridge except for Ken Jones carrying a board onto the bridge these 5 pieces, and we left the bridge in a safe condition with 5 old planks remaining in place along one side. In fact the new 2” x 6” decking seemed to work out better in some ways, and I don’t believe that the college students could have hauled the heavier 2” x 8” planks into the site in a single day. The other problem that we encountered was that the lumber was a little longer than 10’, and the cross supports were not always on 10’ centers. That meant that we had to saw almost every piece of decking to get it to fit correctly.

The good news is that we installed all of the new decking on site safely, and left the bridge in much better condition for visitor safety. We can come back with the 5 new planks and complete the job with a small crew in the near future. Thanks go out to the following volunteers who worked hard to accomplish this job: Blue hammering in a plank

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	5.5	7.5
Tazz Reid	1.5	5.5	7
Jim Holland	2.5	5.5	8
Ed Ley	3.5	5.5	9
Bobby Mitchell	2	5.5	7.5
John Kalabus	3	5.5	8.5
Rick Harris	1	5.5	6.5
Sandy Kilby	2.5	5.5	8
Blue Goodson	2	4.5	6.5
Totals	20	48.5	68.5

Thursday, April 16, 2009: On Thursday we finished the bridge on the North Fork Citico Creek Trail. Bobby Mitchell, Tazz Reid, Ed Ley, and Robert Thomas left the ranger station at 8:00 and got back around 1:30 (+ travel time).

John and Elizabeth Kalabus came by the bridge site, as they were heading up the North Fork trout fishing. Jim Holland made it to Hardee's before getting a call from Joan that he had a sick horse, and he went back home to tend to "Magic".

The finished product of our labors After we get Brush Mtn/South Fork/and Big Stack Gap-StiffKnee we might want to get back over to Brookshire Creek. Someone approached me at the SABCH meeting and said their dad had recently hiked all of Brookshire, and "the trees were really piled up". I think it has been a year since we were in there.

Here are the volunteer hours for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Tazz Reid	1	5.5	6.5
Bobby Mitchell	1.5	5.5	7
Ed Ley	2.5	5.5	8
Totals	5	16.5	21.5

Thursday, June 25, 2009: Bobby Mitchell, Jim Holland and I left the Ranger Station at 8:00. We were driving up the Skyway in my Bronco II when I noticed the tree tops ahead were exploding! I huge pine, timed just perfectly, came crashing across the road. Fortunately, the top blocked the other lane and just stopped at the yellow line, or we would have hit it. It was very calm and there wasn't any reason it should have fallen on us.

We met Rick Harris at the trailhead at 8:30. We made it to the re-route area by 10:30, worked very hard, took a 15 minute lunch, and finished the slingblading/lopping by 1:30. We were back at the vehicle by 3:30 and at the Ranger Station by 4:00.

I counted the trees that were down and there are 23 to go back and log out next Thursday. 9 of them are before you get to the re-route, and 2 of them are before you get to the footbridge. The biggest was up near the re-route and is about an 18 inch Sugar Maple that looks to have fallen in the last few days. The leaves still look healthy. It will require a two-cut.

I'm hoping to have enough help to run 2 saws and get this job done next week.

It was good to have Rick with us today, as he had walked the re-route out with you, and the bottom part had some confusing RR bed side trails to it.

That's about it. The guys worked hard today. Bobby had to sit down with a dizzy spell for a while, but some big gulps of Gatorade put him back on track.

Here are the volunteer hours for this work trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Tazz Reid	1	8	9
Jim Holland	2	8	10
Bobby Mitchell	1.5	8	9.5
Rick Harris	.5	8	8.5
Totals	5	32	37

Thursday, July 2, 2009: Tazz Reid led a trip to work on logging out the reroute on the North Fork Citico Trail today. This reroute begins at a point about 4 miles up from Warden Fields. They cleared a total of 23 trees for the day, including an 18” maple. They installed cribbing at the downstream end of the reroute to serve as a visual queue to hikers headed uphill. They also cut in some wilderness blazes to direct hikers on to the reroute. This end is located at what used to be a stream crossing for the old trail, so it needed some help to keep people on the correct track. The work trip today finished the reroute work and left it in good shape.

Here is the volunteer time for the work trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Tazz Reid	1	8	9
Ed Ley	3	8	11
Rick Harris	.5	8	8.5
Totals	4.5	24	28.5