Report - National trails Day June 5th. Chatham ATT Workday

[Steve Lund]

Chatham ATT Volunteers,

THANK YOU

Thank you for helping to continue the tradition of National Trails Day by 
helping to construct a piece of the future American Tobacco Trail in 
Chatham County.You are all to be commended for your efforts. The honor roll 
of folks that gave up part of their Saturday reads as follows:

Jackie Adams
Cheryln Axline
Frank Bennett
Jim Bennett
Deb Bialeschki
Chuck Brewer
Mark Brown
Bill Bussey
Dan Clever
David Connelly
Steve Cook
Michelle Cook
Chip Coviello
Bill Croughwell
Brandon Culberson
Jeff Diamond
Fred Dietrich
Trevor Dietrich
Jacob Dolan
Marsha Fisher
Jeffrey Fowler
Zach Friedman
David Gehrman
Amy Goldsworthy
William Goodson
Sean Groom
Karla Henderson
David Hughes
Branson Kimball
Gail Kirkland
Tammy Lambert
Scott Leslie
John Lloyd
Steve Lund
Jessee Mayfield
Bill McChesney
Rhonda Mickelson
Teresa Nelson
Angela Nelson
Heather Phillips
Jeremy Portzer
John Provost
John Rose
Chris Siegl
Matt Silliman
Ben Silliman
Rob Somerville
Matthew Somerville
Marcus Southern
Greg Stone
Alan Stone
Matt Strong
Tommy Tallis
Billy Tallis
Melanie Taylor
Jenny Tenor
Lee Tobin
Cotton Tyler
Kent Vashaw
Bart Vashaw
Martha Walker
Steve Walker
Bo Ward
Barry Weston
Stacie White
Andrea Whitfield
Peter Yancey
Paige Young


Please forgive me if forgot anyone. If you were present but not on the 
above list please email Bill Bussey (billbus at gte.net) so that he can record 
your volunteer hours for grant matching purposes. Every hour counts!

Special thanks to Bill Bussey, Frank Bennett, and Joe Makarcyzk for making 
it out to the trail during the previous week and preparing for the Workday.

Special thanks also to Heather Phillips and REI for helping to recruit 
volunteers and providing water and refreshments. Without REI's help we 
wouldn't have had nearly the record turnout of 68 volunteers!


Our goal for the workday was to clean up as much of the remaining brush and 
log piles as possible to make way for mowing the trail this summer. There 
were also a few remaining "leaner" trees that were targeted for being taken 
out.

The weather pretty much cooperated with considerably lower humidities and 
temperatures than we had been experiencing recently. The rain on Friday 
seemed to help keep the ticks away. I did manage to find a few chiggers or 
maybe they found me.

SECTION REPORTS

O'Kelly Church Rd. north to Northeast Creek.:

Dan Clever led a crew into this area to clean up some of the remaining 
brush and logs and to take out some remaining leaners. They removed most of 
the existing piles of brush but managed to create almost as much new debris 
cleaning out ditches and taking out leaners. Dan estimates about another 
half-day of work to remove the remaining debris. Dan also recommends 
placing a tarp in the pickup truck bed to make removing brush easier. This 
way you can move the whole load at one time. A good idea noted!


O"Kelly Church Rd. south to Pittard Sears Rd.

This area also known as "The War Zone" was the main focus of our efforts 
this workday. Before the workday this area was nothing but piles of logs 
and brush that had been previously cleared from the trail and ditches. By 
the time we finished 95% of these piles had been either hauled and dumped 
or hauled into the woods bucket brigade style.

There was also an area near the south end of this section that had a lot of 
bent over pine trees that needed to be removed. About 100 yards were 
cleared which amounted to about 90% of the total and all of the bent trees. 
The only complaint that was heard was that they sure wish that the guy with 
the chain saw would slow down a bit!


New Hope Church Road north to Panther Creek

Frank Bennett led a crew into this section to finish cleaning up the log 
and brush piles that were left from earlier this season. Frank reports that 
all of the log piles were hauled and dumped and all but a couple brush 
piles were hauled and dumped.


CHANGE OF SEASON

TRTC and The Friends of the ATT are now going into summer maintenance mode. 
Our objective is to keep the weeds and brush knocked down on the Durham and 
Chatham County sections of the trail. Our weapons will be lawn tractors, 
brush mowers, and weed-eaters. If any of you would like to help out I am 
sure that Frank Bennett ( FJB675 at hotmail.com ) would be more than glad to 
show you how to use a DR Brush Mower.  Weed eaters are always welcome to 
groom the trail head areas but you'll have to supply your own.


NEW TOOLS

Thanks to some generous grants to TRTC we have been able to purchase a John 
Deere commercial lawn tractor/mower to use to keep the trail in both Durham 
and Chatham Counties open this summer. Cotten Tyler (cottentrail at aol.com) 
will be coordinating the mowing of the trail this summer. So if you would 
like to play with our new toy please contact Cotten to make arrangements 
for a test drive!

The opening of the Chatham County section has doubled the trail mileage 
that must be mowed to a total of 6 miles. Cotten has done a tremendous job 
keeping the Durham County section mowed but I'm sure he would welcome some 
help with the Chatham County section.

I hope that you will take some time to enjoy the trail this summer and 
perhaps introduce some new folks to it as well.


Happy Trails,

Steve Lund
slund-att at pobox.com
Triangle Rails to Trails Conservancy
(919) 481-1300