MT. OSCEOLA TRAIL WORK-NATIONAL TRAILS DAY-BBQ & LODGING

It’s a sunny spring morning on National Trails Day, and seven GayOutdoors.org members are performing trail maintenance on its’ adopted trail, the Mt. Osceola Trail in Waterville Valley, NH. We are preparing the trail for the summer season.

It’s the perfect wooded scene with a canopy of towering trees, white trillium, and a choir of birds.

Mike Boisvert and Jon Normand were the crew leaders. We had assistance from Rob, Tim, Steve, James and Anthony.

We cleaned 30 drains on this day, making sure hikers have clear, dry paths to hike through.

Many were hidden because they filled up with dirt since the last time we did trail maintenance.

“This is the most important job of a spring patrol,” Mike says. “We rake the drains and re-dig the drains to carry away the water.”

It’s hard, physical work – raking, clipping, sawing the trunks of fallen trees, and then lifting those trunks to clear the paths. And then there are other challenges to deal with.

“The black fly regards you as their personal smorgasbord,” Mike says. “And here we are looking rather tasty to them.”

These annoying, small flies swarm all around.

But we were prepared, as all of us applied insect repellent.

Everyone who joined us, plans on returning next year.

It gives us an opportunity to be out in the beautiful New Hampshire forest, which is always a great excuse.

Many of our volunteers are not necessarily avid hikers who spend countless days on trails all throughout the state. Our volunteers do this because it's an opportunity to keep them well maintained.

We credit the trails for maintaining our physical and mental health. So being able to give back is just part of it, because it is fun. It’s getting to work out here with people who have similar values around the trails and how important it is.

There are some paid trail crews, but there are very, very few.

It’s difficult to find people who are willing to help out. For the amount of people using the trails, not enough of them are pitching in.

If everyone that hikes would put in one day of trail work a year, the trails would be beautiful. But that’s not happening. We at GayOutdoors are finding fewer members helping out each year.

When we reached 2 miles into the trail, we came across a fallen trees across the trail stretching for .25 miles. There were giant trees, some 10-15” in diameter!

We worked together to saw and axe over 15 of these trees and taking down a number of smaller ones. We clipped back the branches on a couple of larger trees that were too big for us to handle.  

And that’s just one example of the teamwork it takes to keep these trails clear. It’s really rewarding to be able to look back and see the work we do together. And throughout the day, we received a multitude of thanks.  

It’s a great feeling of accomplishment. We noticed thanks posted on this Facebook page, and on a trail conditions report.

Afterwards, we all gathered back at Mike and Jon’s house [Mad River Lodge] for some appetizers/beverages on the deck and a hiker BBQ feast prepared by Jon:

• Grilled Chicken Breast, Mozzarella Garlic Chicken Sausage, Lemon Shrimp Kabobs
• Garden Tossed Salad, Pesto Pasta Salad, Turmeric Infused Rice
• Home Made Lemon Pound Cake with fresh berries and ice cream.

This is a free meal paid for by GO for our volunteers. Additionally, we provide lodging for the weekend! 

 We finished the evening with a massive bonfire followed by fireworks.

Jon and I want to thank everyone who helped out. We cannot even begin to say how much fun we had working with you all. Thank you all so much, for everything.

We hope more GO members help us next year!

Join us for a fun day of trail maintenance on our adopted trail followed by a BBQ, bonfire and fireworks at Mad River Lodge on National Trails Day!

National Trails Day, sponsored by the American Hiking Society, to promote awareness and cooperation among trail users. Join this historic event and leave the trail better than you found it! In honor of the 50th anniversary of the National Trails System, do trail work on our adopted trail, Mt. Osceola. In a single day, we’ll collectively improve, 2,802 miles of trail – the distance across the US.

Everyone is invited to spend a FREE weekend at Mad River Lodge Friday and/or Saturday night with breakfast each morning. We only have 8 bunks so the first 8 guys that contact us to reserve will get one. Let us know if it’s the entire weekend or just Saturday night. If we run out of room, you can tent outside; please also let us know if you'll be tenting. [Note that we cannot let you into the house until 7PM on Friday.]

We encourage help from members who love the outdoors, enjoy hands-on conservation work, and excited to work alongside with other members. Help us get prepared for the hiking season ahead. This is our opportunity to promote the goodwill of the gay outdoorzy community within the greater hiking community!

Do you love hiking in the White Mountains on a regular basis? Do you want to help protect and care for hiking trails in our community? Turn that love into action!

At the end of the day we will return back to the Mad River Lodge to enjoy the comraderie, chatter and gossip! Showers our available with towels so everyone can clean up. Bring a change of clean clothing. We first start off on our outdoor deck with appetizers and cold drinks. Please bring your own beer/wine…we do not provide beverages. We’ll then cook up Trail Crew BBQ feast worth working for! After the BBQ we’ll light up a bonfire and shoot off some fireworks!

Trail work is a great opportunity to learn maintenance, have a great time, and give back to the mountains that have given us so much enjoyment. No prior experience trail work experience is required. Trail work is suitable for hikers of moderate hiking ability.  

We will focus on clearing waterbars, removing blowdowns and clip back branches encroaching on the trail. The section of trail we will be working on has not been touched since the Halloween storm so we anticipate a little extra TLC will be needed. The Mt. Osceola trail has two 4,000 footers making it one of the most popular hiking trails in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Mt. Osceola is 4370 feet; East Osceola is 4156 feet.

We meet at the Mad River Lodge at 8AM with a brief welcoming and orientation to tools & safety. You will need to be prepared for the day and have sturdy hiking boots, work gloves, plenty of water, lunch, snacks, bug spray and other clothing appropriate for the weather. We’ll provide the fire rakes, saws and loppers. We will be working on the trail rain or shine.

After orientation, we will carpool to the trailhead of the Mt. Osceola Trail off Tripoli Road and hike up to the summit of Mt. Osceola. Mileage roundtrip will be 7 miles with 2, 025 feet elevation gain. That said, because of trail work, we hike up at a slow pace. If trail work becomes too much for you, you can turn around, do trail work on the descent and wait for us back at the trailhead.

The White Mountain National Forest will provide you a free parking pass for one year after 16 hours of work…we take care of the recordkeeping.

As part of National Trails Day, we encourage you to sign up at the National Trails Day website and take the pledge to leave a trail better than you found it. After National Trails Day® they will ask you how many miles of trail you helped improve. You can then reply that you worked on our adopted trail and you will be entered to win the grand prize, which includes swag and premium outdoor gear!

We hope you can join us to help celebrate National Trails Day on Mt. Osceola!

Yours on trails,

Jon and Mike