South Fork Citico Creek

Monday, December 29, 2008: We got started clearing the blowdowns on the South Fork Citico this past Monday (12/29/08). We began at the Warden Fields Trailhead and worked our way upstream to the 3^rd ford (2.5 miles) with the crosscut saw. We cleared a total of 18 trees for the day, but had to bypass the short segment of the trail between the 1^st and 2^nd fords due to high water. There is a very good old trail segment that bypasses these fords, complete with old wilderness blazes. It was dug in and constructed well, and we wondered if the current route with the two fords was a planned or accidental re-route. I’ll try and read through the Decisions Notices some time and see if I can find out the answer to that question.

Here is our time for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2.5	4.5	7
Tazz Reid	2	4.5	6.5
Ed Ley	3.5	4.5	8
John Kalabus	3	4.5	7.5
Totals	11	18	29

Monday, January 5, 2009: We worked yesterday on logging out several more of the Citico Wilderness Trails. The Jeffery Hell Trail (2.2 miles) only had 7 trees to clear, along with some additional small stuff thrown from the trail. We were also able to clear 19 trees from the upper 3 ¼ miles of the South Fork Citico Trail. With our work on the lower end of the South Fork Trail last week, we have 2 ½ miles left to clear in the middle of the trail. This portion of the trail may be hard to access for a while due to the current high water levels.

We had a great work crew of 5 volunteers that worked in the fog and drizzle to clear the blowdowns. I have attached a picture taken by Ed Ley that shows the working conditions. You can see that Tazz has his saw in good shape by the long shavings in the two piles on the ground.

Here are our hours for the trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2	6	8
Tazz Reid	2	6	8
Rick Harris	1	6	7
Ed Ley	3.5	6	9.5
Bobby Mitchell	3	6	9
Totals	11.5	30	41.5

Thursday, March 5, 2009: We had a large work crew of 7 and a beautiful day to work on the South Fork Citico Trail. Our objective for the day was to open up the original trail segment that bypassed the first two stream fords about 1 ¾ mile upstream from Warden Fields. We sawed 9 trees off the trail, brushed out the segment, and installed log cribbing and water turnouts for the switchbacks on the downstream end. This log serves as a visual queue to hikers to switchback onto the trail instead of going straight ahead across the ford. On the upstream end I cut some wilderness blazes to provide directions onto the trail, and we blocked off the straight ahead path across the other ford. I believe that the work today can count as 0.3 miles of trail improvement toward the targets for the Fiscal Year.

Here are the volunteer hours for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	2.5	4.5	7
Tazz Reid	2	4.5	6.5
Jim Holland	3	4.5	7.5
Ed Ley	4	4.5	8.5
Bobby Mitchell	2.5	4.5	7
Rick Harris	1	4.5	5.5
Sandy Kilby	2.5	4.5	7
Totals	17.5	31.5	49

Thursday, May 20, 2010: South Fork Citico Creek - Yesterday we cleared the top 1.5 miles of the South Fork Citico Trail. We cleared about 4 trees with the cross-cut, cut a notch in a large trunk, cleared 3 tops and did a lot of lopping and brushing. We had hoped to make it to Jeffery Hell Trail, but ran across too much work. As you and I discussed we will make next weeks trip the full length of South Fork.

Here are the hours;

Bill Hodge - 7.5 hours - 1 hour travel
Bobby Mitchell - 7.5 hours - 1.5 hours travel
Roger Taylor - 7.5 hours - 1 hour travel

Thursday, May 27, 2010: South Fork Citico Creek - A crew of seven tackled the South Fork Citico Trail. Two started up from Warden Station with loppers and brushed out the trail about two miles in. Four of the remaining 5 were dropped off at Cold Spring Gap and started brushing down the steep grade to the South Fork. The fifth member of the crew dropped down to the South Fork via Jeffrey Hell Trail. The five person crew managed to brush back about 3.5 miles of the top section of the trail before having to hike out to Warden Station. The middle section of trail remaining to be cleared includes a badly overgrown section along an old railroad grade. Part of this section will be tackled the weekend of June 6th by a Tennessee Wild outing. Volunteer hours are below:

Bill Hodge - 9 hours - 1 hour driving
Bobby Mitchell - 9 hours -1.5 hours driving
Roger Taylor - 9 hours - 1 hour driving
Phillip Gooch - 9 hours - 40 minutes driving
Jim Sirmans - 9 hours - 40 minutes driving

Thursday, June 3, 2010: South Fork Citico Creek - Four of us turned out for the trail trip on Saturday (National Trails Day). We switched from a backpack trip to a long day-hike and went in from Rattlesnake Rock. After reaching the South Fork Citico Trail we turned downstream and started working where we had left off a week ago. We had two on the crew working loppers while Jeff Hunter and I worked the swing blades and loppers. As grown up as the trail is in that section we were only able to clear about a half a mile and stopped just short of the worst stretch. I think the bad grapevine covered area could be cleared with one solid day, and then we could turn attention to the short section that needs the tread dug-in. Here are the hours;

Bill Hodge - 8 Hours Worked - 2 Hours Travel
Jeff Hunter - 8 Hours Worked - 4 Hours Travel
Tiffany Hodge - 8 Hours Worked - 2 Hours Travel
Jeremiah Kenoyer - 8 Hours Worked - 2 Hours Travel

Monday, May 16, 2011 - South Fork Citico Creek Trail - Three of us tackled several blow-downs both in and out of Wilderness. We removed three trees from the Jeffrey Hell Trail, removed a problem tree from the South Fork Citico Trail and sawed out a huge mess at the bottom of the Crowder Branch Trail (about 7 trunks). The hours are;

Bill Hodge - 5 hours worked - 1 hour travel
Tazz Reid - 5 hours worked - 1 hour travel
Tom Smith - 5 hours worked - 1 hour travel

Thursday, September 8, 2011 South Fork Citico Creek Trail - A damp day led to a different set of tasks After . I'm glad we could clean up the Eagle Gap Trail Head, and I am very glad we could remove the large tree across the South Fork Citico Trail. I hope the weather cooperates next Before week and the crew can tackle the Hemlock Trail. Here are the hours from today:

Bill Hodge 5 hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel

Tazz Reid 5 Hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel

Rick Harris 5 Hours Worked - .5 Hour Travel

Roger Taylor 5 Hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel

Kyle Atkins 5 Hours Worked - 1.5 Hours Travel

Friday, October 14, 2011 - South Fork Citico Creek Trail - On Friday the 14th I [Bill Hodge] took a small crew out to clear the bottom two miles of the South Fork Citico Trail. We removed eight trees between the Warden Fields Trailhead and the first ford. We only encountered one visitor (a fly-fisher). Here are the hours:

Bill Hodge - 6 Hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel

Anna Wlodarczyk - 6 Hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel (visitor from DC Wilderness Society office)

Davin Hattaway - 6 Hours Worked - 1 Hour Travel (Anna's husband)

SAWS Wilderness Ranger Stephen Eren also joined us in this effort.