Plans are coming together for our trail maintenance trip taking place in the Hidden Creek area on the Great Divide and our list of participants for this year’s trip is full. Thanks to everyone who has volunteered to participate in this year’s GDT Trail Maintenance Trip!
Trail Maintenance Trip – General Information:
- Dates: Thursday to Sunday, July 24 – 27, 2014
- This year our plan is to repair damage to the trail caused by last year’s floods and re-establish the trail from Tornado Pass to Hidden Creek. We’ll be repairing and building trail tread, removing brush and fallen trees, blazing and marking the trail, assessing damage to bridges and performing riparian restoration as required.
- For those of you new to trail building and maintenance, this year’s trip will include a tool use and safety orientation.
- The GDTA will provide all trail maintenance tools and safety gear as well as all shared camp equipment and food.
- Trail Crew participants are expected to bring their own personal clothing and camping gear (e.g. tent, sleeping bag). For those joining us on the trip, I have sent you a Trail Crew Volunteer Guide including a detailed list of what you should bring.
- As there is no cell phone reception in the area, we will have a satellite phone with us for emergency situations.
Itinerary:
DAY 1 (Thursday, July 24): Meet in Calgary at 6:00am on July 24 where we pack up all of gear into the GDTA trucks and carpool to the Hidden Creek trailhead, about 3 hours away. Bring your own bag lunch for the road trip. From the trailhead we load up all of our gear onto the ATV trailer to transport it to our base camp. The trail crew will walk to our base camp approximately 7km away. Once at base camp we will set up camp and talk about our plans for the next 4 days. We will do tool use and safety orientation and possibly a late afternoon hike on the GDT. Then it will be time for dinner and relaxation around the campfire.
DAY 2 (Friday): Breakfast in the morning followed by a full day of trail maintenance on the Great Divide. Bag lunches will be packed in the morning and eaten on the trail. We will break into groups and do trail maintenance in several locations on the trail. Trail crews return to camp for dinner, evening debrief and relaxation around the campfire.
DAY 3 (Saturday): Another full day of trail maintenance on the Great Divide. Hopefully we will finish the work we need to do on the trail and have some time to ‘play’ on Saturday afternoon: hike to Tornado Saddle (one of the highest points on the GDT), working with the GPS, map and compass use, plant identification, etc.
DAY 4 (Sunday): Morning hike or additional trail maintenance followed by lunch and packing up, take-down and clean up of our camp – ‘leave no trace’. And then drive back, returning to Calgary by about 8:00pm.
We are looking forward to a fun and productive trip this year.
Happy trails!
Brad Vaillancourt
President, Great Divide Trail Association
