Monday, April 29, 2013

Volunteer Trail Work: Reese Hollow Shelter

[Reese Hollow Shelter; photo by Gary]


On Friday, Mister Tristan (the 5-year-old human being, not the blog) and I (Gary) met a couple other volunteers for some work over at the Reese Hollow Shelter.

This shelter serves the Tuscarora Trail in south-central PA via a 1-mile yellow-blazed trail that comes down from the Tuscarora Trail up on the ridgetop, to the shelter and spring.  This is just west of Mercersburg, PA.

The main task this day was to relocate the fire pit, which was a tad too close to the shelter and not big enough, say, for a group of scouts to gather comfortably around.  We scraped away the leaf litter and soil in a 10' radius, then dug down another foot or so to bare mineral soil in a 3' circle for the pit itself.  Then we lined the pit with large (say 100 lb) rocks and extended the rock apron another couple feet wider.  Last step was to create sitting benches of downed locust logs from up the slope a bit.

This was my first organized work trip since assuming overseer duties for the shelter and trail in Dec 2012, and I learned a lot.  I expect to be spending many happy, pleasantly tiring hours doing this volunteer work.  I can truthfully say that this day was one of the best of my life.

I was hoping to post a photo of the firepit--which is the best firepit I have ever encountered along any trail, seriously--but all my shots of the firepit included recognizable facials of Mister Tristan himself.  So I'll take some other photos next trip.

 

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