Snowshoe - Trail Maintenance - Swampy to Nordeen or Meissner

Great progress last week clearing the Porcupine Snowshoe Loop and inner Tie Trails at Swampy. Leaving the sno-park with a bit of frost on the ground, Dennis DeLapp and David Anderson headed over Telemark Butte and cleared the multi-tree jackstraw shown in the above photos. Kelly Eager, Kurt Keesy, Gary Evans and Bob TImmer headed across the Summit Bypass segment, clearing several blowdown and saplings. Both groups continued work clearing blowdown, saplings, trimming for marker visibility and replacing missing markers for all but the far portion of the Porcupine Snowshoe trail.

Two choices for work this coming Tuesday, October 29th - Swampy or Meissner depending on conditions due to a forecast of snow this weekend. We will make the call when we reach Meissner Tuesday morning. 

The first choice, we will return to Swampy Sno-park to clear the Short and Long Loops and Nordeen TIe. If we have enough people, we will proceed as two groups and make it a 1-way effort ending at Meissner. We do have reports that the Nordeen to Meissner Snowshoe trail is clear of blowdown.  Distance will be between 3 to 4 miles, depending on whether it is a 1-way or out-n-back from Nordeen. This trail is fairly flat and gently slopes downward towards the Nordeen Shelter. 

The second choice will be to do the Meissner shelter loops. The trail is 3 miles round trip and also fairly flat. 

Please remember that hiking on the snowshoe trails is more difficult since they are not cleared to ground.

Except for the Meissner to Nordeen Tie, I don't have any scouting, thus not sure what we will encounter. We can clear light blowdown with a cross-cut and Katanaboy saws and trim with pole saws where necessary. If we encounter heavy blowdown, we will mark if for future work with chain saws. We will also note any signage issues that need to be addressed.

 Plans