Since this was a single trail area, we planned to clean up, we met at Walker Valley staging area at 11am…love that extra hour or two of sleep! There were no birds chirping and no warm sun shine, but at least it wasn’t too cold. Gary and I met Gary Bellows, our WV DNR Rep there, along with Rock and Jeanie, Chris B, John V, Shawn N and my puddle buddy Justin. Also, candidates Joe, Terry, Matt, Travis and Aaron showed up to help with this effort. OK, Aaron only showed up because he wanted to wheel and none of the other 20 people he asked would go with him….we assured him we would remember this, come voting time! Haha.
We had quick meeting about safety, what we wanted to do, and to thank all who came out on this drizzly day, and were happy to see so many new members and candidates with us. There was some discussion about which rigs were taking the top and with were taking the bottom….OF THE EGG ROCK PORTION OF TRAIL, to be clear! We had 10 rigs, and headed out to the upper area of Ron’s Run.
Those in the above egg rock, landed first, and when we looked over the edge, hmmmm, not quick as steep as it looked 2 weeks before, the trash was not quite as far down as it was 2 weeks before, and of course, the mountains of trash that were there 2 weeks before, was quite a bit less then we remembered! This is a good problem to have though.
The above egg rock group, started walking down the cliff, with trash bags and gloves, provided by DNR, and candidate Joe! Let me tell you something about candidate Joe….he comes PREPARED for a cliff side clean up! He purchased 200 ft of rope, 2 or 3 ponchos for the rain, a couple of full, fowl weather suites, and enough gloves to service the whole club for years to come! Thank you Joe, we will also remember this when it comes to voting time!
By the time the below egg rock group made it up to the landing area and positioned their rigs with winches heading over the edge to repel people and trash up and down the “cliff”, well….most of the trash had already be gathered! We picked up as much trash as we could find around that area, then Gary and Aaron, decided they would just drive up through the egg rock section, while the rest of the below egg rock group retreated the way they had come up, and we all met at the bottom of Ron’s Run. This is where some tow fees were made!
Aaron thought for sure he could guide Gary through this….as some of us guessed, that was not the case today, and Gary had to pull cable. Then, Aaron wanted to try it, and asked that Gary spot him….Gary, our usually great spotter, was apparently having a bad day….the mud and goo didn’t help much either. Aaron was at the lower section of the rocky area, near the cliff, and a tree and a stump. He kept slipping and sliding so, a couple people grabbed a long log, and kinda wedged it on the trail side of the tree and stump, so that they could keep Aaron’s Jeep from sliding further off the trail. This log, happened to be the perfect size, that once he moved his rig forward, it firmly stuck between his rear and front tire, making any movement, forward or reverse impossible! After much discussion of which fender, rock rail or door we should saw off the jeep first, we decided it would be easier to saw the log in half. Gary runs up the hill to grab his little chainsaw, makes it back down to the jeep, pulls that trusty cord to make that saw go vroom………….only to get nothing. OH, the saw needs FUEL to run…..back up the trail to grab the fuel, while John pulls out a little saw and starts trying to cut the log. Once fuel was added to the little chain saw, it worked great, and removed that perfectly positioned log out from under Aaron’s Jeep! This was decided to be a $2 tow fee, as it took cable AND specialized equipment to get him out of this predicament! Thankfully, he had his Tow fee coupon book on hand, and promptly gave them up!
We all gathered back up, at the lower area of Ron’s Run, where we picked up a ton more trash, and grabbed a bite to eat….and Puddle Buddy Justin and I jumped in a ton of mud puddles!
At this point a few of the group decided to head home, so the remainder of us, went down the Express way and Mainline trails, to grab some old, unused temporary fencing and T Posts, that the DNR had asked that we bring down to staging, along with the trash we had collected.
All in all, it was a great day, we had tons of fun, and put in some grant hours for M&O, and collected about 6 bags of trash and a ton of T Posts!
AGAIN, I want to thank all who came out to support Walker Valley in this effort!
AND thank you to the anonymous volunteer who made us Cup Cakes to eat!
Casey
TT#256
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