Diario del proyecto Natural Areas near Saint Michael's College

Hi folks,

The Vermont Youth Conservation Corps sent an amazing crew to the St. Michael's College Natural Area for two weeks in August. They leveled much of the side slope on the wooded portion of the trail. This will reduce erosion and lower the risk of twisted ankles.

More spectacularly, they built an amazing set of steps to bypass the steepest portion of the trail. We will rope off the old section shortly, but in the mean time, if users would start using the new section it would be appreciated.

Finally, an artist will be erecting some installations on August 23. More details to follow.

Cheers

Declan

Hi folks

We recently cleared the fallen box elder from the SMC trail near the Woodside end of the property. Part of the fallen tree was placed in the herd path that had formed around the obstacle to encourage use of the main trail.

A pile of wood chips was placed near the entrance and a few buckets. Feel free to load up a bucket or two with wood chips and dump them on a soggy part of the trail or on any trail location where foot traffic is wearing down to bare soil.

Our goal is to find a balance between enough traffic to keep the trail open without brush hogging, and not so much traffic as to cause erosion. We hope to do additional trail work over summer and particularly to clear the heavy tree trunk that fell closer to the cornfield.

Happy iNaturalizing

Declan