Trail work

I've participated in 20 volunteer trail projects for the National Park Service and U. S. Forest Service over the last 15 years, as a payback for the joy I receive from being in the woods. After I moved to my new place a few years ago, I began exploring and bushwacking through the dense woods abutting our complex and came across some deer trails and a couple of old roadbeds the farmer made to get his tractor to his farthest fields. This gave me the idea to cobble together these old tracks into a loop hiking trail, about 1.5 miles in length, which I proceeded to design and connect through the encroaching underbrush. Upon finishing, I contacted the forest preserve district and informed them of the trail. They sent 2 supervisors and an employee over to tour the area with me because (they relayed to me) “a recreational trail in this preserve is a priority of ours for further developing this area.”

The hour tour went well and they said they really liked the areas the trail traversed, but after conferring, they determined that the district had no “guidelines” for hiking trails and they would have to develop a set of guidelines before proceeding. I read between the lines, and 2 years later, I still haven’t heard back from them.

So even though it isn’t an “official” trail, I still hike it a few times a year -- for pleasure and so the corridor remains viable in case they ever do get back to me. The problem is Mother Nature, for she quickly reclaims what is hers, and during the long growing season when I’m not on my trail, trees fall or drop branches and bushes and vines encroach onto the trail corridor, necessitating lopping and removal. And since I head south for 3 months each winter, my hiking window has shrunk even more.

When we recently ventured onto the trail, after 7 months of disuse and growing season, there were sections I couldn’t even find and we were forced to bushwack again. I managed to find some flagging tape at Lowes a few days ago, and today I worked on reestablishing the trail corridor, cutting back encroaching vegetation (mainly thorny wild rose and buckthorn which are real hassles) and strategically placing flagging to easily follow the corridor in the future. (Ellen is at a 3 day cooking class which she’ll tell you about in her blog later this week.)

I succeeded in re-opening about half the trail loop today, and here's a short section of overgrown trail that I managed to clear...




On the way back to the car, I noticed a recently purchased addition to the preserve now had a rough road cut through it. Following it, I came to the lake that was part of the new purchase. The picture below shows the lovely lake and the homestead (now forest preserve district property) which is still occupied by the seller per agreement with the preserve district.



Unfortunately, I've only seen deer back here twice because the area had been used as a "licensed hunting preserve" for many years before sale to the forest preserve. I've even seen deer blinds attached to trees and shotgun shell casings in the woods while on hikes. If you are curious about what trail entails, here's a photo primer I put together showing the process.