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Paul Dickens and the Wilderness Crew FOURTH QUARTER 2012 Quarterly News Bulletin and Hike Schedule P.O. Box 68, Asheville, NC 28802 • www.carolinamountainclub.org • e-mail: [email protected] Paul Dickens and the Wilderness Crew Becky Smucker and Bill Newton formed a team leader and important cog in through the Middle Prong Wilderness new maintenance crew in the spring of 2008. the machinery. We thought the best in 2007, I hiked other trails in the Since then it has evolved a great deal, and way to update the progress of this Middle Prong that were becoming Paul Dickens has become Becky’s back-up innovative crew was to talk with Paul overgrown and almost impassible Dickens. from years of maintenance neglect. How did you get involved in trail Something had to be done. I start- maintenance and the CMC? ed by recruiting family members to In summer of 2007, my wife and help brush out the Green Mountain I hiked the Big Butt Trail near Mt trail that connected to my section of Mitchell. Parts of that trail were ter- the MST. At about the same time, ribly overgrown with blackberries, Becky Smucker started the Saturday almost impassible. I found the CMC Wilderness Crew to meet two needs website and made a trail problem – to provide an opportunity for CMC report. Shortly afterwards, I received members who work weekdays to do an e-mail from the Asheville Friday trail maintenance on Saturday and Trail Crew asking if I would like to to address the serious need for trail help them clear the blackberry mess. reclamation in the Middle Prong and I took a day off from work, went out Shining Rock Wilderness areas. and helped clear the Big Butt Trail I met Becky and the Wilderness and really enjoyed it. That led to join- Crew in the fall of 2008 on a trip to ing the CMC and then signing up as a brush out the Haywood Gap trail in section maintainer on the MST in the the Middle Prong. I was hooked and Middle Prong Wilderness. have participated in the Wilderness How did you get involved in the Crew since then. Wilderness means CMC Wilderness Crew? hand tools only – no weed eaters or The Wilderness Crew, all certified crosscut sawyers, It was a confluence of opportunity chain saws. We use hedge shears, from left are Wayne Steinmetz, Becky Smucker, Mike and need. After I became the sec- swing blades, loppers, axes and cross Goodman and Paul Dickens. Mike is holding a cross- tion maintainer of part of the MST continued on page 7 cut saw. COUNCIL CORNER It seems like I just paid for the annual dinner online port from Nathan and Lynn Ebanks from a very long time and renewed my membership there as Stratos Digital. But the biggest reason for ago when our well. I was immediately sent two email the success of our website is the same reason club decided that receipts for those transactions. The new we have been a successful hiking club since we needed a new system should help our hike schedulers 1923. We have a great base of dedicated, website and we avoid some of the tedious, repetitive and hardworking volunteers that have made it set out on that error-prone aspects of the job and focus happen. Sometimes a hike is too long and course. After more on finding good hikes and match- tough to be done alone. A group of people some growing ing them up with hike leaders. It’s going working together can make that hike seem pains, we feel to be very easy for hike leaders to turn in easy. Individually we seem to be a group that our web- hike reports. They will appear immedi- of many disparate personalities. But we can site is becoming the functional, user ately online, as do the hours and issues work together and accomplish great things. friendly, colorful wealth of informa- reported by trail maintainers. We’ve been doing it almost 90 years. tion that we hoped it would. We have received excellent tech sup- – Stuart English 1 Club historian Pete Steurer keeps our records Pete Steurer is one of our most important members that perhaps not many people know. Archival Let's Go hike report Becky Smucker arranged an evening event several years ago that involved visiting the An excerpt from the 1st Quarter Let's Go from 1977… CMC history collection at the UNCA library. We need to retain our awareness of this. We “Heartbreak Ridge Lives Up to its Name” recently got in touch with Pete and he had This was a half-day hike in December near Andrews Geyser in McDowell these words for us: County. Five hikers were ahead of the rest and went beyond the regular stop- ping point at the top of the ridge. It seemed safe enough and the trail was well Harry Truman once said, “The only thing defined. The rest…returned to their cars at 5:30 and eight remained after the new in the world is the history you do not other cars left. Five members were still unaccountable for: Ray Ertzberger, know.” You may get to know some new Jim Roddy, Dottie Burton, Don Harrison, and Dana Smith. Only Smith had things by discovering our Club’s rich and an adequate coat. Ed Dunn and Gerry McNabb walked in the dark partway diverse history. back up the trail at 7 PM to do some shouting when the others were not back CMC was organized in 1923. In these near- by then. The decision was made to call the Rescue Squad. They made their ly 90 years, our Club has been a significant headquarters in Brookside Church. By 10:45 all 23 members of the squad part of our local heritage and has also been a were on hand ... McNabb and Dunn were ready to lead a group of rescuers up national influence in promoting and protect- the ridge where the five had last been seen. As soon as they started they were ing the mountains of North Carolina. Four called back … it was 11:20. The lost five had gotten off the return trail and of our members were so prominent that they had dropped off the opposite side of the ridge which took them 7-10 miles have mountains over 6,000 feet named in further than they had planned. Although they had no matches or flashlights, their honor. Others have major trails named there was a full moon, there was no wind, the temperature was only 30, and for them. Some have done so many things they had plenty of snacks. The incident can serve to remind us how danger- over many years and have carried us on their ous our mountains can be… shoulders for the next generation. We are currently a thriving Club of more than 1,000 members. membership could have sat in some- and “family” feuds. But we have also struggled. One time the one’s living room. Several times we The large majority of our Club’s history Club shut down for almost three years. Two had declining membership due to is preserved in the Special Collections times our Club was so small that the entire national issues, changing club goals, room at the D. Hiden Ramsey Library at UNCA. If you have access to the inter- net, you can search their systems to dis- cover what is available and even look at scanned documents and photographs from years past. Or you can arrange to visit UNCA and look at the actual documents. A smaller portion of our history can be found on the shelves of the North Carolina Reference section of Pack Library and in their Special Collections archive. This year marks my 30th year as a member of CMC. I became the unofficial club historian in 1992, when on my second duty as a CMC councilor, I was asked to research and write a history of the Club to celebrate our 70th anniversary. I became the official historian in 2002 when long- time member Bernard Elias had the fore- sight to arrange for the safe preservation of our collection at UNCA. Check out our history at: http://toto.lib.unca.edu/findin- gaids/mss/CMC/default_carolina_moun- tain_club.htm Maybe your future will be From the Skinny Dip Falls hike earlier this summer, this is a view from Graveyard changed by what you learn there from the Ridge. Always respect your environment out here, never take it for granted. past. 2 TRAIL MAINTENANCE See the Hike Schedule on the CMC website for leader for reservation. This new one-way CMC All members are encouraged to participate more complete and timely information, including hike in the MST month hopes to capture peak fall in trail maintenance activities. Non-members scout reports, at www.carolinamountainclub.org. color in addition to mountain vistas from Devil's are invited to try it a few times before deciding Courthouse Overlook, Mt. Hardy, an open meadow if they want to join the Club and be a regular CHALLENGE PROGRAMS and a scenic walk along an unmaintained but part of a crew. We train and provide tools. SB6K For hiking all 40 peaks above 6000’. reasonable path on Fork Ridge. We will park cars Below is a general schedule of work days. Contact Peter Barr, [email protected] at Devil's Courthouse Overlook and Rough Butt Exact plans often are not made until the last P400 For hiking every trail in Pisgah Ranger Overlook on BRP and the leader will decide the minute, so contact crew leaders for details.
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