Today's hike was planned to be a reconnaissance of the Forest Service's recent trail clearing work. Previously, our Uwharrie Trailblazer group had reported some significant damage along the Birkhead Mountain Trail from Tot Hill Trailhead. Some was in the wilderness and some was not. The Forest Service was able to address the non-wilderness damage using a bulldozer and a crew of sawyers and swampers.
From the trailhead it was easy following the trail, now that a bulldozer had traveled through. I would have thought a dozer would have made more of a mess, but was surprised to see how lightly it made its presence known.
After walking through the now cleared damage, I made my way up to Coolers Knob, where the wilderness begins and there is more damage. Here, nothing had been done except it was easy to see "walk around" paths had started to form. After a few minutes, I could see that this was not going to be a significant problem for hikers. It was easy to make your way through the damage. If it were flagged, it would be a no brainer to find your way through.
Between Coolers Knob and Camp 1, there was the occasional tree down. That is par for this section. There have been walk arounds in place for years. Once at the jct with Camp 3 trail, I could see some downed trees. No walk arounds here. I started to make my way through, stopped, headed back to try again. This was going to be a challenge. I slithered my way through a lengthy section of damage, The size of this blowdown is significant. When it was time to return, I decided to avoid it altogether. Dropping down to the headwaters of Hannah's Creek, I went way wide of this area, wondering how we are going to deal with this. Since, I have learned the SAWS crew will make an appearance in September to address this and damage along Robins Branch.
Dozer trail through the non-wilderness damage. FS did a great job here. It is a trail again.
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