Anyone who hikes the Dartmouth Outing Club trails this Memorial Day weekend will be able to thank Cabin and Trail and chainsaw crews from local forest services for the condition of the trails.
Ice storms, which paralyzed much of northern New York, eastern Canada and northern New England this past winter, tore down whole trees and littered branches in the path of the trails.
"The damage is not normally as bad as it was this year," Dartmouth Outing Club General Manager David Hooke said.
At first, the ice on the tops of the trees "looked nice, like a winter wonderland," Cabin and Trail Chair Sarah McCoy '99 said. But then, because of its heavy weight, the ice brought down the tops of the tall trees, which knocked down the shorter trees.
The DOC, which usually relies on a string of club members and local volunteers to clean the trails every spring, found that many sections of the trails could not be cleared by this small group in a reasonable amount of time.
"We went out about four or six times for just one section of a trail to get it done," Hooke said. "It was really intense in some areas."
The DOC surveyed the sections of the Appalachian Trail it maintains to determine the extent of the damage in April.
Although Mount Moosilauke was not hit hard by the storm, Moose Mountain in Etna, N.H., was "pretty dreadful," Hooke said.
After the survey was completed, Cabin and Trail, which is responsible for the maintenance of 70 miles of Appalachian Trail and 50 miles of side trails, began its work.
"The forest services went ahead of us and helped clean with chainsaws," McCoy said. "We just threw the brush off the trail."
In addition to the White Mountain and Green Mountain Forest chainsaw crews, Cabin and Trail also received some help from DarCorps volunteers three weekends ago.
Hooke said the DOC plans to have the trail cleaning completed in time for Memorial Day trips and thru-hiker season.
A group is going out this weekend to work on the top of Smarts Mountain, which is not quite finished yet, Hooke said.
But Carl Demrow, director of the Appalachian Mountain Club, said it might take the group until the middle of June to clear the 350 miles of White Mountain trails that it maintains.
Those who plan to hike this Memorial Day weekend, however, should find that all is passable, he said.
