Subject: Ice Storm Cleanup Update
Author: Carl Demrow at PNCPost
Date: 5/8/98 3:42pm

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

Our campaign to clear ice storm damage from the 350+ miles of AMC maintained trails in the White Mountains has begun in earnest. This week, our experienced sawyers have begun to take advantage of the detailed condition reports that so many of you sent us over the winter. The sawyers are in the woods, cutting downed limbs, treetops, and trees on the most damaged sections of our 350 miles of trail.

Our strategy, in the interests of safety and efficiency, is to have the sawyers cut out a trail ahead of time; we’ll then dispatch a volunteer crew to pull all the cut, downed wood off the trail. Thanks to a tremendous and much appreciated volunteer response, we expect many of our worst trails to be cleared during our cleanup weekend on May 16 and 17. After that weekend, we will reassess, and we expect our staff trail crew to finish remaining work during their annual patrol June 3-19. At this point, we have a second large cleanup weekend date of June 13 and 14- we will determine if this date will be needed by May 25^th, and let you know.

The Appalachian Trail from Kinsman Notch NH to Grafton Notch Maine likely has some isolated problem areas that we’ve yet to hear about, but we have been very encouraged by the reports we’ve received. Areas that still have problems are Gordon Pond to Reel Brook Trail in the Kinsmans, Thoreau Falls to Kedron Flume Trail in the Ethan Pond area, and the Webster Cliff area from Rt. 302 to Mt. Webster. Other areas that may have problems are the Madison Gulf Trail in Great Gulf, and South of Page Pond in the Mahoosucs. Some of the worst AT damage occurred on the Old Jackson Road and Lost Pond sections in Pinkham Notch; these sections have been cleared. We expect all of the AT from Kinsman to Grafton to be passable by the end of May and completely clear by mid June.

At this point, things look good. The sawyers are swiftly doing some very difficult and challenging work, and we are very grateful to the volunteers who have pledged to help us out. The real test will be to see just how much we can accomplish on the 16^th and 17^th as moving the huge amounts of brush off the trail will be slow and difficult (but very rewarding) work.

Our goal, which we feel very comfortable with, is to have all trails cleared by June 19^th at the very latest. We anticipate no problems achieving this goal. The Forest Service and area trail clubs are pursuing similar timetables.

On behalf of our volunteers and staff, we greatly appreciate your support and patience during this time, and we look forward to restoring public access to our trails system.

Carl Demrow
Trails Director
Appalachian Mountain Club
PO Box 298
Pinkham Notch Visitors Center
Gorham, NH  03581