Keystone Trails Association to Host Special “Trail Love” Maintenance Event in the Michaux State Forest on National Trails Day
KTA has been awarded a generous Mini-Grant from the South Mountain Partnership to organize a collaborative hiking trail maintenance event within the Michaux State Forest. Mechanicsburg, PA: Keystone Trails Association, a statewide organization committed to providing, protecting, preserving, and promoting hiking trails and hiking opportunities in Pennsylvania, will be hosting a new “Trail Love: Michaux State Forest Edition” maintenance event on Saturday, June 1, 2024, celebrating National Trails Day and the 40th anniversary of its Trail Care Program. Trail Love will be a lively and festive trail maintenance blitz at sites throughout the forest. Volunteers will have a variety of projects to choose from including options that are accessible and accommodating for any level of maintenance experience. “Trail Love will be a fun way to welcome first-time volunteers and elevate our seasoned regulars!” shares Jenn Ulmer, Manager of Trail Maintenance and Training at KTA. “We’re honored to have so many great partners coming together to host trail maintenance projects at the event including PA DCNR, surrounding Friends groups, Pennsylvania Parks & Forest Foundation, and Appalachian Trail Conservancy, just to name a few.” A South Mountain Partnership Mini-Grant was awarded to the Keystone Trails Association for the planning and development of Trail Love during the September 2023 Power of the Partnership Celebration. “Pennsylvania’s conservation landscapes, like the South Mountain, are critical to the preservation of our state’s hiking trails,” shares Brook Lenker, Executive Director of KTA. “South Mountain Partnership is doing incredible work to promote the Michaux State Forest. We’re excited to collaborate with them on this event and hope it helps people feel more invested and connected to the South Mountain region.” Volunteers for Trail Love will have the option to camp out the Friday evening before the event at Pine Grove Furnace State Park, can enjoy complimentary meals on Saturday (including a special cookout), and will receive a free commemorative t-shirt. Learn more about and volunteer for Trail Love: Michaux State Forest Edition at: www.kta-hike.org/michauxtraillove About Keystone Trails Association: The Keystone Trails Association offers a robust trail care program with volunteer opportunities available on PA trails, serves as the statewide voice of the hiking trail community and trail advocate in PA’s capital, and offers a wealth of hiking opportunities throughout the year that both long-time hikers and the next generation of hikers can enjoy together. This project was financed in part by a grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program, Environmental Stewardship Fund, under the administration of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and Conservation. The grant was awarded through the South Mountain Partnership, with management oversight of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. We are a partner of the South Mountain Partnership, an alliance of organizations working to preserve and enhance the cultural and natural assets of the South Mountain Landscape in Central Pennsylvania. To learn more about the Partnership, please visit www.southmountainpartnership.org. ### We want to announce a sizable bequest that has just been received from the George Gardiner Probst Estate. In his honor, the majority of the bequest has been invested in the Keystone Trails Endowment fund. George, who is from Wellsville, NY just north of the Pennsylvania line, was a veteran of the United States Navy and the United States Air Force. He was a Mason, and a member of the Susquehannock Trail Club, and Finger Lakes Trail Conference. He enjoyed hiking, backpacking, fishing, hunting, and camping. He especially enjoyed canoeing the Pine Creek in the Grand Canyon of PA. See his full obituary here: https://www.eveningtribune.com/obituaries/p0200357.
Continuing to grow our endowment fund is important to providing long-term financial stability to our organization. Consider KTA in your estate planning to make a positive impact on Pennsylvania Trails for future generations. Please take this opportunity to consider making a donation to The Keystone Trails Endowment Fund sometime this year as a lasting legacy to the mission of KTA. KTA member clubs and other groups may also make contributions to the fund. Consider making a donation in honor or memory of a club member who has made a difference in your club or the hiking community. An application is available on the KTA website: https://www.kta-hike.org/keystone-trails-endowment.html Donations will be recognized at the KTA Keystone Hiking and Outdoor Weekend, Susquehanna Riverlands, October 18-20, 2024. Thanks for your support, Wayne E. Gross KTA Development Committee Chair Dear Member & Friend of KTA,
Spring is upon us! Get out for a hike and bring a friend! I want to thank you for your efforts in furthering our mission of providing, preserving, protecting, and promoting recreational hiking trails and hiking opportunities in Pennsylvania. At a pivotal grassroots level, each of you is making a difference. Whether it be through trail maintenance, volunteering with local hiking clubs, adding your voice to advocacy issues affecting our trails, or leading a local hike, we thank you. A lot is going on with KTA. Through the efforts of our Executive Director, Brook Lenker, KTA has received Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Grants and has completed another application for 2024 DCNR funding. These grants are invaluable in helping KTA further its mission. Under the leadership of the Strategic Planning Committee, Chair Krista Cessna, KTA developed a strategic plan. The plan was adopted by the Board in December 2023 to help guide us over the next five years. Our strategic plan is beginning to be implemented. Congratulations to the trail and hiking clubs receiving the KTA mini-grants helping the clubs meet the needs of our hiking trails. The funds for these grants are direct investment disbursements from our endowment fund. Please apply for future mini-grant opportunities for your hiking clubs when available. We mark our 40th anniversary of KTA Trail Care in 2024. Plan to participate in one or more trail care activities that Jenn Ulmer and Al Germann have lined up for us. Check out our website for details. We wish a fond farewell to our Manager of Communications and Development, Holly Tritt, who is following other pursuits. We thank her for her enthusiasm and dedication to KTA. Welcome to Kate Prisby, Manager of Events and Programs, Al Germann, Regional Trail Care Coordinator: PA Wilds, and Haley Feaster, Manager of Communications and Development. We welcome these new staff who we are sure will bring their great diversity of talents to help us achieve the mission of KTA. These three join Brook, Casey, and Jenn on our staff to make great things happen for Pennsylvania Trails with our KTA volunteers and partner organizations. The Board and I wish to give a special shout out to our Executive Director, Brook Lenker, who has been navigating us through the many changes that have been occurring - all for the better. There is a full list of KTA events, activities and trail care opportunities. Please visit our website and sign up for one or more and bring a friend. We have our upcoming KTA Spring Hiking Weekend in Stroudsburg, PA on April 19-21. Please take an opportunity to go to our website and sign up by April 5th to attend. Hoping to see you there. For the trails and those who wander on them! Thanks Wayne E. Gross President, Board of Directors Keystone Trails Association The Statewide voice of Pennsylvania Hikers The following was written by current Manager of Trail Maintenance and Training, Jenn Ulmer, for the April 2014 KTA newsletter. Not much has changed: there are still plenty of trails that need our help. Perhaps even more now. If you want to give back to PA’s hiking trails, please consider volunteering with us for a day or weekend!
So how many times has this happened to you: you’re hiking along, taking in the sights and sounds on a beautiful day, when all of a sudden, the trail starts narrowing and you’re navigating a bramble patch. Or you come upon some downed trees over the path. Or the blazes are so faint you really have to pay attention to make sure you don’t wander off the trail. “Gee,” you think, “someone should take care of that!” Then you start to think, “I wonder who does?” When we started volunteering with the KTA Trail Care program in August 2011, we thought it would be a great way to meet other hikers, and give back to the recreational activity that we love. So we contacted the Trail Care leader, Joe Healey, and he gave us some general information about the weekend and what we should bring. We showed up at Ravensburg State Park after work on Friday and set up our tent. Joe and his wife Lorraine offered us some chili from a big crockpot. Saturday morning, we lopped back encroaching vegetation with a crew consisting of Lorraine, Diane, Kathy, and Connie. What a hoot! After a long day on the Mid State Trail, we all went out to dinner. What a welcoming group, we thought- we’ll have to do this again. Never mind the fact that my Jeep had a dead battery Saturday morning, or that the showers at the state park were less than stellar- this all added to the adventure (and to future stories). One of the best parts of Trail Care is the “down time”. After a full Saturday of work, we hit the showers, have some supper and conversation, then more fun around a campfire at night. We are regaled by wonderful stories of hiking adventures, and tales of shenanigans at previous Trail Cares. This is also a great opportunity to seek opinions about hiking and camping gear, and first-hand information on some of PA’s premier hiking trails. Through KTA’s Trail Care, we have met the nicest, most welcoming bunch of people! You may be thinking that you wouldn’t be able to contribute much- we sure thought that. We didn’t know how to run a brushcutter or chainsaw. However, there is so much more to do, and we have learned a lot about trail maintenance: the proper size and placement for a trail blaze, the width to lop or trim a trail since it might not see a crew for another couple years (Wanda said to picture yourself carrying a 4x8’ sheet of plywood down the trail), some methods of alleviating swampy spots, digging sidehill, “planting” signs, and rock stepwork. Over the past year, I think we may have earned respect as hard workers who don’t mind getting dirty! At the end of the day, it’s so rewarding to us to think about all that was accomplished. Another benefit is that we have traveled to and camped at so many state parks and hiked so many trails that we may have never had the opportunity to, otherwise. In exchange for participation, we get free camping. We bought a PA State Parks and Forests Passport that we get stamped at each state park we visit, to chronicle our adventures. Please consider trying Trail Care at least once. That is all it took for us to get hooked. Your help will be invaluable. The more hands, the easier and quicker the job gets done! There is something for almost every level of ability. No one is made to feel inadequate-everyone is an equal and valued member of the team. Guest post by Jim Foster When people acclaimed the work of Sir Isaac Newton, he famously said: “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” I don't claim to have achieved anything like what Newton did, but, like him, I credit others for anything I have achieved. Here are three giants who inspired me to start maintaining trails and hike on them. In September of 2005, I had started hiking around my home in south central PA and heard about the Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club. I decided to come to one of their Saturday work days. That work day was led by Frank Bohn and Dick Barrick. Frank and Dick impressed me with their quiet, unassuming dedication to the Trail. We had a great time cleaning out water bars and brush. At the end, Dick, who was CVATC's chief of maintainers, asked me if I was interested in taking on a one mile section. I said that I might, and he showed it to me. I took over that section near Sherwood Drive, which I maintain to this day. Sadly, Dick has passed away. Frank moved to Florida several years ago. But the REAL star of CVATC was and is Craig Dunn. Some of you may know Craig as the husband of our illustrious Secretary of Pennsylvania's Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Cindy Adams Dunn. Not as many know that Craig is an acclaimed and well honored star of the Appalachian Trail in his own right. Craig started out with trail work in the 1970s with another wonderful A.T. club, the Susquehanna A.T. Club. He was President when SATC built its shelter on top of Peters Mountain in Dauphin County. In the late 1980s, the stewards of the A.T. decided to change the path of the A.T. from a road walk in the Cumberland Valley to a true woodland trail between Carlisle and Mechanicsburg. Craig led the effort with others to persuade landowners to give up a portion of their land for the trail. The effort became quite contentious and a group was organized to oppose the effort. For a time it looked like their efforts would succeed. But, they hadn't counted on the quiet, relentless persistence of Craig Dunn. More than anyone else, Craig was responsible for the ultimate success of the project. A new club was founded to manage the 17 mile section of new trail, CVATC. Since it was founded in 1991, Craig has been its trailmaster, leading the maintenance efforts. Craig, Dick and Frank inspired me to move from maintaining a section to leadership. I became President of CVATC in 2009. Later I started to lead the work on the section of the A.T. KTA manages in northeastern PA. I also found out that I loved backpacking. I completed a thru-hike of the entire A.T. in 2007. I've done several others around the world. These days we hear a lot from people who brag about how important they are to the success of a particular project. But, in my humble opinion, the real work of getting important work done is performed by quieter people who work behind the scenes and seek no glory for their successes. Craig, Dick and Frank exemplify these important people.
Guest post by Gerald Rowan I grew up in the very north- eastern corner of the state. An area of forested rolling hills and old broken-down farms. It was rural and it was isolated. What it did have was numerous lakes, streams and miles of old logging roads to walk. Within a mile radius of our farm were six beaver dams, an old mill pond and another man-made pond. Within a three-mile radius there were three natural lakes. The swamps were thickly forested with hemlock and the ridge tops with sugar maple and hickory. The outdoors was a year around engagement. Hiking, swimming, kayaking, canoeing, backpacking, hunting, fishing in the lakes, streams and beaver ponds, ice skating and ice fishing in the winters. Back them every boy had his own trap line. There was also maple sugaring and mushroom picking. In season there was herbing and wild berry picking. There were no basketball or tennis courts, but it didn’t matter. I spent much of my free time hiking, camping and fishing in the area. With a driver’s license there was the upper Delaware, Lackawaxen rivers and Dyberry Creek to explore. Lake Wallenpaupack was only a twenty-minute drive away, the Catskills maybe thirty-five. After high school, I worked my way through undergraduate school as a hunting and fishing guide for a private club in Pike County. In time I was their resident guide, specializing in fly fishing. I was still hiking, backpacking and fishing but now I was getting paid for it. In the early sixties, I bought my first VW microbus, an old Bell Telephone service truck, converting it to a camper. Now I could explore over a much wider terrain. By 1970 I landed my first college teaching job, which afforded me a schedule that made hiking, camping and fishing even more possible. Often, we combined opportunities, backpacking in to camp and fish in remote areas that were not accessible otherwise. As I grew older backpacking and sleeping on the ground got replaced by a series of tents, pop-up campers then travel trailers. Now hiking/fishing/camping expeditions could be weeks long and anywhere, from Ashville to Boundary Waters to anywhere off the grid. I fell in love with the Pennsylvania state parks. They were in the right places with the right amenities. My count of state parks is fifty-eight and numerous stays at my favorites. I counted twenty-seven stays at Hickory Run. I began doing volunteer trail work with the Allentown Hiking Club and the rebuilding of several shelters on the AT in Berks and Lehigh counties. In time I worked with a number of different crews all over the state. Working with a crew at Worlds End in 1999 after hurricane Floyd was my first-time camp cooking. After that I camp cooked for a number of years. In 2008 I turned sixty-five and retired. With retirement I shifted gears and began to travel. I still hiked but now it was the Twelve Bens or the Wicklow Mountain in Ireland. I live in the Lehigh Valley and the AT is just a few minutes west of me. The Pinnacle, Hawk Mountain. Bear Rocks and Bake Oven Knob are easily accessible for day hikes. On warm fall days I’ve sat at the base of Bear Rocks for hours watching wild turkey. I always had an interest in protecting the environment. Back in 1955, after experiencing the double whammy of hurricanes Connie and Diane, I realized nature could be fragile and needed our support and protection to thrive. It seems to me that people will protect the things they love. Well-developed and protected public spaces, and access to them, will allow the greatest number of people to experience and enjoy wild Pennsylvania. Guest post by Jerry Haimowitz I am a retired Civil Engineer who through-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2014. In 2017 my wife and I moved to Berks County, PA, and in 2020, she passed away. I then joined the Blue Mountain Eagle Climbing Club and became an Appalachian Trail Maintainer. I am now paying forward to all those who have maintained all the trails I have enjoyed these many years. I am also surprised just how much knowledge goes into maintaining a trail; which is why I am grateful for the opportunity to attend 3 trail maintenance workshops sponsored by Blue Mountain Eagle Climbing Club and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC). There are books on trail maintenance like “Appalachian Trail Design, Construction and Maintenance” which I have read. However, there is nothing like the hands-on experience of spending a day doing trail work with a professional. Doing is the best teaching method and I learned something new at each of the three sessions I attended. David Bailey, our BMECC Trails Maintenance Committee Chair arranged for and coordinated the class attendance. Greg Riston, the ATC field trainer, came in a van filled with all the tools and safety equipment we could possibly need. Greg started with an introduction to the tools, including three that most of us were not familiar with, the Palaski, fire rake and McLeod hoe. Then on to tool safety and finally general safety. Perhaps the least known safety issue was the need to be Crosscut Saw Safety trained in order to use a hand saw on any log 6” or over. Personal protective equipment (PPE) was passed out and we were ready to go. We walked the Trail and discussed many issues. Blazing is more complicated than it looks, from how to paint a blaze to over-blazing and blaze placement (especially in difficult situations like trail junctions and rock fields with no trees). Then there is keeping the hikers on the treadway, how to properly trim brush from the usual 4’ X 8’ green tunnel and the occasional need for exceptions to this; like leaving the down slope vegetation a little longer to force the hikers to the up slope side of the trail. The most important topic was erosion and drainage control. We learned when and how to build water bars, and when and how to build cross drainage swales. While it's nice to have your trail work recognized, one of the neatest tricks we learned was “naturalizing”. After a few minutes of redistributing leaf litter, a brand new water bar looked like it had been there for years!
Trail maintenance ranges from the simple like carrying a bag to pick up litter and a pair of pruning shears to cut back intruding vegetation, or it can be complicated and demanding like building water bars. You can do it alone or with friends. There is more fun to be had on trails than just hiking! One can learn, enjoy friends and gain a sense of accomplishment by maintaining the trails we love so much! Find a KTA trail care event near you! 👋 Meet Mark, a KTA supporter from Lancaster, PA! Q: What makes hiking in Pennsylvania special/meaningful to you? A: "The variety of terrain and the beauty of our state." Q: What type of hiking do you typically prefer most often? A: "I prefer using our wonderful systems of trails to train for adventures outside the state and country." Q: When did you start hiking? A: "I’ve been hiking since grade school as a Boy Scout." Q: What are you currently excited about in your hiking life? A: "I am excited to share I’ve just returned from a successful winter climb to Mt. Everest Base camp!" Q: Which hiking trails do you enjoy/recommend that are near where you live? A: "Kelly’s run is amazing for training purposes. When you do it twice in opposite directions you can get some decent elevation changes." Q: Which hiking trails do you recommend (anywhere in PA)? A: "The AT is a great route for most hikers." Q: What do you value most about KTA's mission? A: "Thank you for promoting healthy lifestyle living! We need more people active and engaged in their communities! Thank you for all your work!" Do you care about providing, protecting, preserving, and promoting recreational hiking trails and hiking opportunities in Pennsylvania? That's why KTA is here! Help ensure this mission continues to be fulfilled. 👋 Meet Roxanna, a KTA volunteer from York County, PA! Q: What makes hiking in Pennsylvania special/meaningful to you? A: "I grew up along the Susquehanna river and these trail have been a part of me all my life." Q: What type of hiking do you typically prefer most often? A: "All the above! A few hours, full day, multi-day, backpacking. I have done KTA Trail Challenge all but one year. I am always in the Mason Dixon. It may be trail work, all day hiking / night running." Q: When did you start hiking? A: "All my life I have been on these trails. But only started trail running/ hiking them about 30 years ago Conestoga trail was my first race and thus began my enjoyment of the trails in PA." Q: What are you currently excited about in your hiking life? A: "Currently getting ready to do a Buck Ridge Burn 1/2 in Pine Grove Furnace next, Brandy Wine Home across Delaware." Q: Which hiking trails do you enjoy/recommend that are near where you live? A: "Mason Dixon for sure!!" Q: Which hiking trails do you recommend (anywhere in PA)? A: "Conestoga trail, trails all around Lock Haven, and the Horse-Shoe Trail." Want to hike the trails Roxanna suggested? Get guides, maps, and patches from KTA's store! |
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