April is chainsaw month in the national park. The plan for this month’s work trip is to try to remove as many of the winter blowdowns as we can get to. The certified sawyers need helpers to stop traffic on the trail and to pull the lumber away. The areas that appear most in need of cutting are from Fontana to Doe Knob and from Newfound Gap to Clingmans Dome. The Newfound Gap Crew will meet at Sugarlands Visitor center at 8am April 1. Contact Dick Ketelle 865 483-9345 rhketelle@comcast.net or Phyllis Henry 865 577-2604 phyllishenry@yahoo.com if you can help with either the Newfound Gap or the Fontana sections.

Saturdays don’t work for you? How about a trip to the mountains on Wednesday? Meet at Sugarlands Visitor Center 9am April 26 to finish the spring clearing of the trail south of Newfound Gap. Contact Lucinda Turbeville, lucindaturbeville@comcast.net

A Celebration of the Appalachian Trail. Come join in the fun from 10 AM to 7 PM at the Happy Hiker 905 River Road in Gatlinburg, TN.

Food, Music, Gear reps on site, raffle for gift certificates and gear. Learn to identify edible and medicinal wild plants. Booths will be set up from different organizations: SMHC, ATC, Friends of the Smokies, just to name a few. Bring along the children there will be face painting and other activities.

Part of the proceeds raised will go to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to help finance trail crews to work on the Trail 54 miles of the A.T. in the Smokies.

The Warren Wilson students arrived at Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) on March 11, to work from March12-18 .The plan was to work from NOC north to Watia (Wright) Gap. The work is scattered all along the way, starting near NOC, to do some remedial stuff on earlier work. Lots of rockwork to flatten the tread, move it some, sidehill digging, with cribbing to support. NOC put the crew up in their own tents, with full access to the community building, the kitchen, dining hall, and showers. Notices were posted inviting through hikers to work with us any of the days —provided they work a full day — and they would be accommodated and fed just like the students.

Jim Lowe’s midweek report:

We’re past the midpoint and getting a lot of good work done. We lucked out, in that we’ve got really good workers, three of whom had done rock work, and there’s lots of rock. We’ve put in good, solid rock-step stairs up the first steep, rocky spur, cribbed with rock around and down that, filled with crushed rock and dirt. Beyond (we’re to the bridge now), we’ve cribbed with rock and locust, filled, put in rock and locust steps, restored tread. We have one hiker who took us up on the stay-over, work for free-food deal, and he’s staying all week. He worked on a Konnarock crew once before. He’s section hiking.

One of our crew, not a Warren-Wilson student but knows some of them, Jen Berry, through hiked in ’04 and has been a trail tender up north, has been particularly good. She really knows rock work and is strong.

We had our pizza party and celebrated my birthday. Dottie’s baked coconut cream pies for me to take. So, it's going well and everyone’s having fun. More to follow in the next newsletter about the end result of a week spent working on the Trail.

Jim Lowe reports that Jimmy Smith, from Western North Carolina, saw certified and a go-getter, who has already done a lot of sawing on the Trail this year, has agreed to take over the Nantahala section maintained for several years by Dennis Fulcher. We hope Jimmy finds many years of pleasure and accomplishment in this work.

Dennis had maintained the section of A.T. for many years. The A.T. community thanks him for his dedicated service. His efforts on the A.T. in the National Forest section are much appreciated by us all and his work is still quite evident in the blazes he painted, the trail work, and his participation in the Sassafras Gap Shelter reconstruction.

Members of SMHC spent all or parts March 12-15 assisting with a helicopter lift of building supplies to various sites in the park for SMHC, ATC and the NPS. It was a big, complicated operation, and took many hands to pull this off. The helicopter was also delivering supplies to LeConte Lodge, and it was quite amazing watching a year’s worth of supplies and fuels flying over the mountain. .
Some of the volunteers participating in this massive effort were: Philip Royer and Wayne Williams who got materials together for the shelter rehab and precut the privy for Pecks Corner, Dick Ketelle who took care of the logistics of all of the log work, (now, we have to install all those logs) Matt Davis, ATC rep, who coordinated with the Park, SHMC and helicopter company, Pete James, Stew Taylor and Lucinda

Turbeville got the mulch ready to transport to various places for the privies. Also, RR’s Mark Tinkham, Carl Goodman and Jim Mowbray helped, and George Minnigh, GSMNP backcountry specialist who always does everything and anything to make it work along with his assistant (me).
Thanks to the folks who helped get the logs bundled
and had to stand around a lot just waiting for the wind to calm down: Steve Higdon, Jim Lumpkins, Craig Rightmire, Barbara Allen, Bill Clabough, and Pete James helped with the unhooking of the logs north of Clingmans Dome. Mark and Jim (the RR's), Daniel, Jeanette and Mark Rogers took care of the loads at Pecks Corner, and RR Carl, Eric Bettis, and Mac McNutt were stationed at Cosby Knob. James Fondren, Stew Taylor, Jerry Troxler, and Tom Howard tore off the roof at Cosby and put on a tarp, tore off the old and put on a new roof at Tricorner, assembled the privy at Pecks and removed blowdowns from Tricorner to Pecks shelters. They were joined by RR Mark at Tricorner, who came from Pecks to unhook the helicopter loads.

Good job to everyone and many thanks again.

1/15/06 Pam Reddoch, Dick Bowers and Happy Too walked from Stecoah Gap to Brown Fork Gap cleaning water sources, removing nine blow downs with a bow saw, clipping briars and cutting weeds. They checked and cleaned the privy and shelter and took out trash. They report the trail is open, in clear and clean shape and ready for the North bounders. They met their first early-bird North bounder, a Danish woman, trail name Red Dane. 

3/01/06 Pete James, Stewart Taylor, Jerry Troxler, and Phyllis Henry cut blowdowns in National Forest south of Fontana Dam.

3/04/06 Dick Ketelle, Ann Farrar, Ron Beatty, Craig Rightmire, and Jim Russell cleared blowdowns between Yellow Springs Gap and NC Hwy 28 near Fontana Dam. We used small hand saws for most that could not be dragged off the trail but there were 4 trees that required us to use our crosscut saw.  For more see the next issue of the SMHC A.T. Maintainers E-Newsletter coming soon.

The season has started for the Ridgerunners and we welcome back Mark "Shatter" Tinkham, Carl Goodman, and Jim Mowbray. If you see these guys out while hiking or working on your section, please thank them for their hard work and make them feel welcome for another season in the Smokies.