Purposeful Hiking.

The forecast for the day is 92 in town. I am at Newfound Gap at 9am, enjoying the cool breeze. The sun has yet to burn off the mist, and the feeling is more like fall than mid summer.
I have a mission today. I will hike out to Icewater Springs to cut back vegetation encroaching on the trail. I am a volunteer with Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, which is responsible for maintaining the Appalachian Trail throughout this national park. I advertised on the club’s list serve that I would be “mowing” today, and would welcome help, so Ed and Jeanine are with me . Ed is a tall, fit fellow, a bit older than me. I look at his legs and decide he will not enjoy my hiking pace, so we agree that he will walk out to Charlies Bunyon at his preferred pace, and work back, cutting blackberry branches and anything else taking advantage of the sunlight corridor the trail provides.
Jeanine is new to trail work. She has been on a couple “training trips,” but this is her first real “responsible for getting work done “mission. I have been taking care of the trail for about ten years. I don’t go out a lot, just a few times a year, as my life is full with other things, but my days tending to the trail are cherished. I have walked this section of trail over 50 times. I know it, as I know my back yard. Before each turn, I know what I will see around the corner. I know the location of the difficult steps, and my preferred path over them. I see the places where I have worked with the crews who do major tread repair, and admire how our work has held up for several seasons. A trail is not permanent. The mountain looks so timeless, so static, but when really known, shows itself to be ever changing. With each water droplet, each grain of dirt, each pebble, the mountain slowly moves itself down to the plain. To keep a trail in place is continous work.
Jeanine and I hike the three miles up to where we will start our work, at the junction of the Boulevard Trail to Mt. Leconte with the A.T. This is “my section,” the one I am responsible for, and I want to work on it while we are fresh. We use swing blades to mow grasses, ferns and vines. We have also carried up loppers in our backpacks, and get them out to cut small firs and overhanging branches from larger firs. I enjoy javelin throwing the cut trees down the mountain.
Jeanine is a great worker, totally throwing herself into her work. All new workers are tentative at first, fearful of cutting too much. I give her “permission” to cut, and she blossoms into it. Grass flies off the swing blade, carpeting the trail. At first she uses the loppers to individually prune branches off small trees. I tell her it’s ok to cut down the entire sapling, and down they come once after another. All gardening must be ruthless. One plant has to die so another can live. It’s the same on the trail. A maintainer has to keep pushing the trail back up the mountain.
We enjoy looking at the trail behind us, seeing it as a wide corridor where there was previously a dark tunnel. Hikers come along and ask the usual questions. “What are you doing?” “Do you work for the park service?” One fellow, and I’m not sure whether he is kidding, says “I was thinking I might have to notify a ranger that someone was out here destroying the vegetation.” Many hikers thank us for our volunteer work.

A little after noon hunger overcomes our desire to work our way to the shelter at Icewater springs before lunch. We only lack a hundred feet or so, but we decide to lay down our tools and walk over to the shelter. Jeanine has never been to the shelter before, so I enjoy watching her first time view. I helped rebuild this shelter eight years ago, and think it is quite the elegant lean-to. I also take Jeanine down the path to the privy, and do a quick lecture on composting privies. Ours has a “throne” which can be slid to sit atop one of three bins. One bin is “active” while the other two are composting.
As we eat our sandwiches, fruit, nuts, and trail bars, Ed arrives at the shelter. He has mowed himself the mile back from Charlies Bunyan, and declares that all is well between the shelter and Bunyan.
After lunch we agree that Jeanine and I will finish working toward the shelter while Ed hacks at the major grass growth around the shelter. Then we all walk back to where Jeanine and I had started our mowing. Our plan is to walk and mow our way back to the trailhead. Watching Ed mow, I see how he could work faster than us. His powerful long arms hacked into the tall grasses, chopping big sections with each swing. Ed gets a bit ahead of us, and on a breathing break I look up and think the sky looks ominous. We’re on a ridgeline which runs for about a mile. I tell Jeanine I think we might ought to leave the mowing and get across the ridgeline before the sky starts acting up. We pick up our blades and hike back down to the last look out before the trail slopes back into the woods. Ed is at the lookout, admiring the view. Although we’re still two miles from the trailhead, we can see and hear cars moving on the road below. After a day spent in the wilderness, a person just doesn’t want to hear cars.
Ed REALLY wants to get the whole trail mowed, but I am running out of steam. The athletes call this “hitting the wall.” When I swing my blade, no grass is cut. I declare I am done. Jeanine is glad to stop, and claims she is only continuing to cut because I am. Ed, though, can’t help himself. If he sees a large stand of grass, he has to take some swipes at it. So we walk down the mountain, with Ed taking the occasional swipe, me whining softly to myself (I hope softly—anyhow that’s my story), and Jeanine happily traipsing along.
When we get to the trailhead, Ed said “Dianne, just call me, and we’ll come finish the last part we didn’t get.” I reply, “OK, Ed, thanks for your great work.” I don’t say what I’m thinking, which is, “another volunteer can get that last section, I believe I’ve done enough for a month or so.”
There is nothing like working physically hard all day at something worthwhile. We could have spent the day hiking the mountains, but by hiking AND mowing, Ed, Jeanine and I gained the satisfaction of not only enjoying ourselves, but accomplishing something that benefits both hikers and the mountain.

(regarding the pictures: I left my camera in the car, so these pictures are from other maintaining outings).