Sugar Cove Trail

The Sugar Cove Trail (FS Trail 89) is 2.4 miles long and rises 1650 feet from North River Road to the Unicoi Crest Parking Area on the Cherohala Skyway.

Thursday, September 30, 2010: Hemlock and Sugar Cove Trails - We had enough people to send saw crews down from the Skyway Trailheads on Hemlock and Sugar Cove Trails. Unfortunately we didn't get either trail completely logged out. The crew working on Hemlock Creek Trail lost the trail on the upper end and had to bushwhack down to the creek to find it again. The crew working on Sugar Cove (yours truly) managed to saw into a rock just at lunch time. This left the lower mile of this trail with about 8-10 trees across the trail, with about half of these being over 12" diameter. Both trails are in need of brushing out, and Sugar Cove has about 200' of tread work need at about 3/4 mile up from the North River Road. We need to schedule more work on these trails in the future. Here are our volunteer hours for the day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	6	7.5
Jim Holland	1.5	6	7.5
Tazz Reid	1	6	7
Ed Ley	3	6	9
Totals	7	24	31

Wednesday, December 1, 2010: Sugar Cove Trail and Conasauga Falls Trail - We started work logging out the Sugar Cove Trail from the North River Road. It was snowing on us and the area had received 3 inches of rainfall the day before. We sawed on tree before reaching the stream crossing about 1/2 mile in. The water at this crossing was running fast and deep. We scouted our other spots to cross downstream and upstream and could not find a good crossing. We decided to give up for the day, and check out the Conasauga Falls Trail after lunch. This trail was in good shape and we only had to clear small stuff from the trail. Here are our hours for the work day:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	4	5.5
Bobby Mitchell	1.5	4	5.5
Totals	3	8	11

Thursday, February 17, 2011 - Sugar Cove Trail and Annual Chainsaw/Crosscut Review Course - We started the morning with 8 volunteers attending the annual refresher for chainsaw and crosscut saws. We really appreciate you and Robert putting on this new class for us. I think that we all appreciated the safety discussions and reminders in safe saw and axe use. Following the class, 4 of us went out on a work trip to finish up the Sugar Cove Trail maintenance. We had a saw crew and two weedeaters to complete the remainder of the trail. The saw crew completed the lower 1.25 miles to tie in to the upper portion that was logged out last fall. The brush out crew started about 1.25 miles in and brushed out another 1/2 mile to a point where the trail started to become steep. This trail becomes excessively steep on the way up to the Cherohala Skyway, and this steep portion may be decommissioned at a later date. Here are the volunteer hours for both the class and the work trip:

Name	Travel Hours	Work Hours	Totals
Ken Jones	1.5	7	8.5
Tazz Reid	1	7	8
Bobby Mitchell	1.5	7	8.5
Roger Taylor	1	7	8
Ed Ley	3	2	5
Philip Gooch	1	2	3
Carey McHugh	1.5	2	3.5
John Kalabus	2.5	2	4.5
Totals	13	36	49