Trail Maintenance - Northville-Lake Placid Trail

Today, Holly and I started our 17th year of adopting a section of the Northville-Lake Placid Trail, a 133-mile hiking trail through the heart of New York's Adirondacks. With a recent reroute, our section has now been reduced to about 3 miles. Each year, we make two trips, one in spring and one in fall, and get the trail in shape for the season that follows, be it hiking or cross-country skiing. We always lead this as a Schenectady Chapter ADK trip, and we take whatever willing help we can get.

Today, we only had one signup, our friend Mary. Holly and Mary took care of cutting back brush, and I did what I could as the only one clearing last fall's leaves out of drainage ditches, allowing excess water to drain out of the many muddy areas on the trail. It's hot, dirty work, but very tame as trail maintenance goes. The infamous Adirondack blackflies were out, but not in extreme numbers, but temperatures were a little warmer than we would have liked. The trail seemed drier than usual, and we found no downed trees whatsoever that needed to be removed, so it was a pretty easy day compared to some we've had. The trail is now in good shape for the summer.

We spent about 4 hours on the trail, including a pond-side lunch, then enjoyed root beer floats and soft ice cream on the way home. Thanks, Mary, for helping out yet again!