Ed and Sofia live down in NC but he sure loves this place. The company has built trails all over the US, and has this crew working full time..wherever they are! Y'all be glad to know with two weeks on the mountain, moving lots of rock and dirt.. they saw NO rattlesnakes/copperheads. Great abundance of almost tame deer.
About two thirds of the way down the new trail you come to this! The seat is carved out of an oak log. Count the rings on the table to see how old it was! The view is out to the southeast, and the rock work anchors a turnaround on the switchback. That's Ed Sutton taking a break from horsing those stone steps into place. Trail itself should be done the end of this week. Then, they'll start on returning the present trail to a natural state. That's when we can use some of our volunteer help to drag limbs, leaves, etc over the exposed dirt.
After a wait of a couple of years and false starts, we finally have Trail Dynamics putting iron on the mountain cutting the new trail, refurbishing portions of the old, and getting ready to return the eroded, current trail to wilderness status.
Ed Sutton, the 'Jefe' says the work should take their crew a couple of weeks, and welcomes visitors while the work progresses. Stay tuned for volunteer tasks..
Dingo is our local law enforcement official presence here on the Buffalo. He's replaced Al Cire, although Al can show up as well sometimes. The 4WD problem continues to torment us this summer, and we hope the new trail will calm things down a bit. The 4WD guys have started using the old power line easement parallel to Buffalo Mountain road. A man was arrested bagging rhododenrons from the preserve, and paid a hefty fine in Floyd County court.
The dust hadn't even settled on the new trail before Sam Price was making tracks on the new path.. UH, WHICH way is UP?
This is the trail breaker Ed uses to cut the initial trail, and groom the slopes to define run off patterns and width. It a marvelous piece of equipment. The crew will be on site for a couple of weeks. Come on up and say "Hi" We talked about getting some wire fencing carried up with the equipment, to make a deer-grazing-proof encloseure near the trail. Our volunteers could actually construct the enclosure once the fencing was there. A good educational project to show visitors the impact of the deer population. I told Ed we have our volunteers standing by to help.
Here is a good look at tree rings going back over a couple hundred years. This was from the trail clearing and is now the seat of a converted tree stump along the new trail. It would be nice if we could build a small kiosk here, finding out from VA Tech, where the decade markers are in the bands. Then, a hiker could sit and read all about it.
This was an old oak that had to be cut, but Ed saved the stump for something useful! Nice work, Ed!
This is the clean up machine that does the finishing work after the trail bed is cut by the heavier equipment. They always start at the top, and work down so gravity can help as they move earth and rock. These machines have a narrow footprint to keep the trail width down.
This is the new trail as it comes into the junction below the summit. Heading SW down the south face of the Buffalo.
Trail Dynamics started work this week on the new switchback trail running across the SE face of the Buffalo. It will start near the present switchback below the kiosk, the area the old locals call the Rattlesnake Den, and rejoin the present trail at the junction of the present trail and the old fire trail, a couple of hundred yards below the summit. That final portion of the existing summit trail has already been upgraded.
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