Please Do Not Tap On the Glass

I’m sore, but in the good way. I spent nearly four hours yesterday with a half dozen strangers working to rehabilitate one area of the First Manassas trail at Manassas National Battlefield Park as part of National Public Lands Day. I learned that trail maintenance work is the task of the all-volunteer Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. They’ve been at it for a while because when I mentioned some storm damage from a few months back, our “boss” for the day knew all about it and told me they removed the trees and mulched them for the trail.

We were assigned the task of removing a huge concrete drain pipe and the four-step staircase from a spot in the trail not far from the visitor’s center. I know it well because I walk there at least twice a week and that spot is rather odd. The stairs are tilted forward so they’re not fun, but going up the short little bank by the drain pipe is often slippery because of fallen leaves and gravel. This adventure was all the more fun because it rained all night.

Stairs with dirt, gravel removed from all sides

First we cleared what used to be the drainage ditch on the side of the trail, then we cleared all the debris away from the water bars (those wooden planks planted on sloping trails). Next we started picking with matlocks and shoveling away the loose dirt and gravel from the drainage pipe. The dirt was taken further down the trail where a couple of volunteers spread it on the trail and tamped it down.

It took a lot of hard work to get the drain pipe out because it weighed a couple hundred pounds. It’ll be used for drainage in another part of the park.

There's the pipe we dug out and the start of the new path

After we got the pipe out of the way, we picked and shoveled the path to make it slope more naturally with the trail above. Next, we started on trying to remove that little staircase.

We were not successful. We picked above the staircase and found some big stones used to hold it in place. They’ll be useful in other parts of the park, too.

Pile of rocks to the right; dug out staircase

We kept picking and digging to find out what was at the base of the stairs and we finally found that it’s bolted to concrete. The PATC will have to bring in a tractor to haul it away, then smooth out that side of the trail to match the other and make it slope naturally. They’ll also come in and refine the drainage trenches we dug. Essentially, we were the grunt work!

I walked the trail today and found it much easier to walk down that part without the steep bank or the annoying, tilted stairs. Once the work is completed it’ll be a much nicer section of the trail. The PATC “boss” mentioned that since I walk the trail a couple of times a week that I might think about becoming an overseer. I’m not sure what that entails but I found myself examining the trail today and trying to figure out how it could be improved. A little bit of trail engineering is quite interesting.

s.