Summer 2013 Hammering the Hammersley By Wands Shirk, President, Susquehannock Trail Club deck for Saturday's work detail, plus six boys from Boy One of the ways the Keystone Trails Association benefits Scout Troop 538 in Lewisburg, PA. Scout leader Steve hiking trail clubs is assisting with trail maintenance when Everson last winter had read about the planned trail care Mother Nature gets ahead of us on trails from time to weekend on the KTA website and brought six hard- time. After KTA's Ed Lawrence hiked a section of the working teenagers along with himself and a co-leader to Susquehannock Trail System (STS) in Potter County last camp in the Hammersley overnight and do trail work on summer with his wife Cathy and good friend (and former Saturday and Sunday. The Scout troop was preparing to KTA executive director) Paul Shaw, Ed offered to let the go to Philmont in July, and needed to do some shakedown Susquehannock Trail Club (STC) host a KTA trail care this backpacking to get in shape for their High Adventure trip. May to "Hammer the Hammersley." The KTA volunteers separated themselves into specialized Pennsylvania has 16 designated "Wild Areas," in which teams. Tom Bastian began Saturday early and carried out a timber harvesting, resource development, and motorized day-long attack on the big woody items. He hiked a chain transport of all sorts is prohibited. At 30,253 acres, the saw the entire ten-mile length of the Hammersley section Hammersley Wild is second in size only to the Quehanna and cleared all the blowdowns from south to north. Wild Area, but the Hammersley maintains the distinction Most satisfying to STC founding-father and retired forester of being the state's largest roadless area. This honor Tom Fitzgerald was the planting of a sign post at the creates a challenge for trail maintenance, because the STS intersection of the Twin Sisters and Elkhorn trails on the passes through the Hammersley on 10 miles of trail with STS. Tom had made the signs in 1980 from heavy no road access between the ends. With a five mile hike in wooden planks which were subsequently pressure treated to the center of the Hammersley, and another five mile with creosote for wood decay protection. Bill Boyd hike out, most of the local STC maintainers have no time fashioned a stout signpost from black locust tree. But or energy left in a work day to do Pulaski, chain saw, until today, a crew large enough to transport the signs, brush-cutter, or even lopper work in the center stretch of post, and digging tools up a steep mile of Twin Sisters the trail. Trail work might get done on the first three miles Trail and across another mile of plateau to where they on each end, but the center four miles of the stretch would needed to be planted, was never available. see tools and trail-crews rather infrequently. The men in the crew loaded Under the direction of STC president (and KTA vice Wellis Balliet—a human the signs, the signpost, the president) Wanda Shirk, 34 workers put boots on the STS pack horse digging tools, and the brush- ground over the weekend of May 17-19, 2013. Ole Bull cutting tools on John Zim- State Park donated the Group Camping Area for the mer’s deer cart and started volunteers, and some who arrived early enjoyed hiking the up the trail. But the cart two-mile trail around the park, viewing the beach and wasn’t made to carry a rigid swimming area along Kettle Creek, and visiting the vista 8-foot-long load. The end of where Norwegian violinist Ole Bull once began building the post kept dragging on his home for the short-lived, ill-fated nineteenth century the ground. In less than ten colony he started there. minutes, the men unloaded Tom Bastian and Ed Lawrence, assisted by thrower Wellis the post, and 76-year-old Balliet, put chain saws to work on sections of the Morgan Wellis Balliet carried it most Hollow Trail and Wild Boy Trail on Friday to jump-start of the way up the first mile the weekend's work. Mid State Trail boss Kevin Busko on his shoulder. The deer had done preliminary scouting and sent back reports of Photo by Tom Fitzgerald cart was soon out of sight far where blowdowns needed to be cleared. ahead. Fifteen KTA volunteers and eleven STC members were on But before noon, the relief crew arrived. The Boy Scouts, who had driven from Lewisburg to Cross Fork that morning, had caught up with the STC/KTA volunteers. roads, and old logging railroad grades into one 85 mile The Scouts forged on ahead, and stashed their packs loop. Individual trail sections somewhere along the trail. Shortly thereafter, three of the retain their original names. Motivational Brush boys came running back, grabbed the post, and carried it Vegetation in the Hammersley Cutter Tony Robbins the rest of the way up the hill and across the mile of ridge was attacked from both ends of top to the intersection of the Twin Sisters and Elkhorn the trail. On the north end, trails four men took in brush cutters, Troop 538 sign crew. L to R: Ethan Davidson, Thomas Lantz, one took a Swisher mower, and Matt Challman, Elliot Davidson,Peter Challman, Carter one took a sprayer, while two Kerstetter women hiked in with loppers, all attacking a serious over- growth of briers along the trail. Hikers in shorts and T-shirts need not fear that section this summer. The path is now four feet wide. Back on the south end, STC member John Zimmer and Photo by Tom Fitzgerald KTA volunteer Tony Robbins spent the day attacking the mountain laurel brush that was creeping into the Twin Sisters Trail. The two men were armed with heavy-duty weed whackers and outfitted with personal safety equipment that would meet Soren Photo by Steve Everson Eriksson’s approval. By 4 PM, when time, fuel, and energy had begun to run low, the duo was forced to call it a day The Scouts dug the post hole under the supervision of the about a quarter mile short of the Elkhorn Trail KTA volunteers. By noon, they had the post firmly set in intersection. That portion of the Twin Sisters Trail has a the ground and the two signs bolted in place. It was noted much lighter invasion of laurel brush. It can be traversed that the non-STS portion of the Twin Sisters Trail had without difficulty. already been blazed in yellow, presumably by the Susquehannock Forest District. Troop 538 restoring the Hammersley Trail Troop 538 removing a lodged tree from the STS Photo by Steve Everson Early in the day, a five-person Pulaski crew pushed all the Photo by Tom Fitzgerald way to the heart of the Hammersley near the famous The Scouts cut away a few laurel bushes and pulled down a Hammersley Pool, which is is wide and deep enough for lodged tree at the intersection, narrowly missing the seated swimming even in the dog days of summer. They began volunteers who were taking a lunch break. After a short digging out a stretch of new footpath two to three feet rest, the Scouts continued on their shakedown hike, and wide along a portion of the Hammersley Trail where a the KTA crew loaded the digging tools onto the deer cart mere six-inch treadway was sliding off the hill. More than and trundled it back down the trail to Cross Fork. seven decades of slow hillside erosion and annual leaf fall had nearly obliterated the footpath originally constructed The Susquehannock Trail System was created by linking by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. many Civilian Conservation Corps fire trails, timber sale 2 Newsletter printed by the Welfare Hollow Publishing Group, New Florence, PA 15944 When Troop 538 arrived, the KTA crew turned over their Lorraine and Diane lopped up the hill south of the park. Pulaskis and two pairs of loppers to the boys and headed Tony and Ed took brush cutters to the lower Wild Boy on up the trail to spend the rest of the day working with area and made comfortable, four-foot wide swaths where invasive barberry had overtaken a half mile of trail. And the north end crew. Troop 538 Scouts spent about seven finally, Joe and Betty Clark and Wanda Shirk, on their hours extending the restoration of the Hammersley Trail second day with Pulaskis, went up the Three Stone another 20 yards, then brushed out approximately a Quarries Trail and turned another section of narrow goat hundred yards more of the trail back toward Elkhorn path into a proper sidehill trail with real tread. When Betty Hollow. They also cleared a portion of the Pool campsite inspects it and says it's okay, then it's okay! area of brambles, and brought out the tools when they KTA's trailer-load of tools was put to good use over the hiked back to Cross Fork Sunday afternoon. weekend, and thanks to Wanda Shirk and Ed Lawrence, A father-son-daughter trio from Ephrata, PA, hiked in everything was well-organized. Temperatures were perfect from Cross Fork later in the day. When they caught up for working, camping, and -- in some cases -- finding an with the Scouts, they complimented the boys on their ice cream cone at Kinney's Store in Cross Fork to work and expressed appreciation for the efforts of celebrate the satisfaction of a job well done.