Volunteers clear Baxter trails Achieving goal builds friendships

I found myself standing in a circle of people in the dirt parking area at the start of the Marston Trail in Baxter State Park on National Trails Day weekend. It was two weeks ago on the warm spring morning of June 8.

There were more than 20 of us made up of Baxter State Park professional trail crew members, Friends of Baxter Park trail stewards and their members and friends, and registered park volunteers. We were all invited to work on the Marston Trail in celebration of Trails Day.

The Baxter trail crew was mostly young 20-something men and women who looked ready to work. They were led by one young woman, Remy Vazquez. We stood in a circle listening to Paul Sannicandro, the park’s Trail Supervisor, describe our task for the day and the safety precautions we would need to take so no one got hurt.

After the safety briefing we went around the circle, each of us in turn introducing ourselves. I tried to remember as many first names as I could in case I needed to call one of them for help later. I recognized Nelson Daigle from Millinocket, a registered park volunteer who has climbed Katahdin 350 times. The Friends of Baxter Park volunteer group included another person I knew, Charlie Jacobi, the natural resource specialist from Acadia National Park.

I wasn’t aware he’d be there until he arrived the night before. We camped at Abol Narrows along with other volunteers and a couple from Friends of Baxter Park, Barbara and Bill Bentley. She’s the president of the group. Bill’s an EMT, and they both hike and volunteer a lot in the park.

Actually Sunday was the rain date for the work trip. Trails Day was the day before, but due to a forecast of a 70 percent chance of rain, Paul used the rain date. The event is the one day a year when volunteers turn out all over Maine to clean up and maintain trails in their area. As I listened to Paul describe the “corridor definition” work that we would be doing that day, I almost groaned out loud. No one else did, so I kept quiet.

“Corridor definition is just a better way of saying brushing,” he said. “But that’s what we’ll be doing today. We’ll be cutting back the small trees that have grown into the trail. That, and clearing water bars.” I thought to myself, I hope there’s enough work for this large crew. I needn’t have worried, I found out later.

After the talk we loaded up our packs, grabbed hand tools, toe rakes, loppers, mattocks, shovels, hard hats and safety goggles and started up the trail to where the work was located 3.7 miles away, uphill on a saddle between North and South Brother.

We left the parking lot around 9:45. Getting to the work site first meant a gradual, then steeper hike to a point about a third of the way up, to where we would drop the shovels and rakes to clear the water bars from there back downhill. The going was slow in the early heat of the day, but we got there, with all the tools.

After a short pause, we hiked up to the next landmark, a beaver pond with great views of the ascent ahead. Charlie and three volunteers stayed at the beaver pond to cut back brush, some of the “corridor definition” work Paul told us about earlier.

Then, after the rest of the group left the beaver pond the trail got steep, really steep. We ascended over bare ledge in spots, until we stopped at a great view for a break. I hiked with Nelson Daigle a while and his friend Doug Rich. Paul was the last guy in the group, running “sweep” in case anyone needed assistance. I decided to hike with him, in case it was me.

We were encouraged to drink water and stay hydrated. Heat exhaustion was a real concern as the temperature climbed into the 80s. Paul and I both took a lunch break, then finally after a long steep uphill climb, we caught up to the crew who had already started working. It had taken about three hours to get to the work site. We climbed about 2,000 vertical feet from the valley floor and were now on a saddle in full view of North Brother at 4,143 feet and South Brother at 3,920 feet.

Brushing, or “corridor definition,” is the simple job of lopping off limbs and cutting small trees that have grown into the trail. It’s amazing how fast fir and spruce grows. You hardly notice it, then, over time it becomes a branch that you brush against when you’re hiking a trail. Eventually they grow in and make hiking difficult. This trail needed a good cutting back. It was starting to get narrower from the fir trees closing in.

We had a strategy that we followed back down the trail, working as we went. I was partnered with Doug, a retired air traffic controller from Hampden. He and I were told to hike past the other two-person crews who were working until we got to the last team on the way back down the trail. Then, we dropped our packs, picked up our loppers and walked off about a hundred feet. Cutting trees, with me on the right and Doug on the left, we cut and tossed the brush off the trail as we worked our way back to the packs.

While we were working, we got to know each other. We talked about volunteering and our families, kids, hikes we’ve been on, that sort of thing. Soon, the other crews leapfrogged past us and started the process again. For the next two hours, the air in the high-altitude forest smelled like Christmas from the fresh cutting. The trail started to show the improvement as Paul commented when he went by.

“This was bad,” he said.

It was getting late, by then, and Paul came by and told us we had to be back at Kidney Pond for the chicken barbecue that was prepared by the cooks for the day, Loren Goode and his helper Charlie. On our way down we met up with the other crew from the beaver pond below. All of the water bars were dug free of their accumulation of organic material, leaves and dirt.

Soon, we were back in the parking lot. A few of the trail-hardy trail crew members from the park were swimming in Nesowadnahunk Stream. I went down and soaked my head to cool off, then drove in to Kidney Pond for the feed.

At the picnic tables, there were gallons of lemonade, fresh salad, hot dogs, burgers and barbecued chicken. While we all were gathered around, Paul explained that the work we did that day was much needed and appreciated. He said, “I marked the waypoints on my GPS, and it looks like we clipped back about a half a mile to three-quarters of a mile of trail. What we did is typical of trail work in the park. We hiked about 41/2 hours round trip and worked two. It’s the nature of a trail network like ours.”

In the park, he went on to say, there are about 220 miles of trail and they can only get to clipping about 50 miles in a given year. That’s why volunteers are so important.

“Everyone contributes something if they volunteer. Even if it’s just carrying tools,” he said. I talked to one of the park crew, Lesley Schuster, 22 of Chardon, Ohio, at the picnic table and asked why she came to Baxter for the season.

She said, “I picked Baxter Park over Montana and the Adirondacks because I wanted the adventure of going somewhere I would not have a chance to get to otherwise. Maine is that remote place where I wanted to be.”

The rewards of trail work go far beyond the obvious benefits of volunteering toward a common goal. There are the views, like those on this hike across to Doubletop. There’s the company of new friends, whose chatter along with your own sometimes breaks into full-on laughter while you work together. There’s the passage of the day, which you’ve spent in the company of others. Volunteer on a trail crew and it just might be the most fun you’ve ever had getting in the dirt. Oh, yeah, the bugs were bad.

sourball@gwi.net