Adirondack Peeks Winter 2025

weekend was drenching and cold. But our volunteers work hard in adversity, love the work and the comradery and were smiling at the end of the day! We spent seven days on Calamity Brook Trail endeavors. We have reworked some of the drainage done over the last few years and added many more as we creep farther up the trail every year. The work is easily visible on the trail. We dug almost 50 huge drainages in 2025. We also installed 60 feet of bog bridging over mud pits, but only after carrying the material about a half mile up from the old suspension bridge we demoed in 2024. It is well apparent that our efforts are paying off. The trails are getting harder and narrower. It can be seen that the first 2 ½ miles from the Upper Works trailhead are in very nice shape! A second new relationship was established in 2025 with the Champlain Area Trails System (CATS, www. champlainareatrails.com). We designed and constructed three beautiful replacement bridges and repaired a fourth. Specifically, the bridges are located at West Valley Trail, Duprey Tail, and Wildway Passage Trail. Please visit: the bridges are works of art and the trails are wonderful! We worked again on East River Trail, more fondly known as the trail to Adams/Allen. We constructed 120 feet of bog bridging, which involved carrying much of materials to site, about a half mile, We also did a huge amount of side cutting from trailhead to about 2 miles out and cleaned several drainages near Lake Sally. Forty-sixers should be proud of this crew as they pass this area on their way to Adams or Allen! We spent two days on Cascade Mountain hogging out material in preparation for the new trail build. The goal was to remove all vegetation, etc. and bench cut a 4-foot “level” path. We completed almost a half mile over the two days. The second day, we were nearing the col between Cascade and Porter, so we hiked up to the col and then down the regular trail! Becky Swem #7306WV, and Janet Bowman cutting blowdown on the East Mill Flow - Round Pond Trail in the Hammond Pond Wild Forest – Photo Credit Brian Sweeney #15821

A few of us hardy volunteers spent an overnight at Caulkins Brook, where the DEC wants to restore a 40-foot span bridge. The site is about 1.5 miles south of the herd path to Donaldson Mountain. We retrieved and inventoried stacks of wet lumber from the woods. The lumber had been previously dropped by helicopter. Our job was to pull it out of the woods and stack to dry. The DEC has started the build and we intend to assist next year. All work done in the Hoffman Wilderness noted below was done on and in conjunction with the North Country Trail (NCT, northcountrytrail.org), which runs from North Dakota to Vermont and meanders through the southern Adirondack Park. We should be very happy to be part of the construction of this trail system, longer than the Pacific Coast Trail and the Appalachian Trail! Ed King #5713V, Betsy Laundrie #4615 and Roger Meunier #11979 setting bob bridging on the East River Trail that serves access to Allen Mountain – Photo Credit Doug Varney #6468WV

WINTER 2025 | 39