A dozen of us headed north to the Carry Ponds region of the Appalachian Trail last weekend for some trail maintenance. A year ago I volunteered to maintain a 1.6 mile section of the AT from Sandy Stream to the north end of Easy Carry Pond. My good buddy Dana maintains the 3.3 mile section of trail immediately to the south, and has for ten years now.

So this is our second season doing joint maintenance trips up there. And it's working out pretty well. We camp each time in a gravel pit pretty near the middle of our sections. From our base there, we're positioned well to head off to our respective sections and start in on the work.

And that's just what we did last weekend.

As AT trail maintainers, we're charged with "opening" the trail in the spring sometime prior to Memorial Day. So we need to get in there and clear out all the blowdowns and brush from the pathway, thereby opening it for hikers coming through. We'll normally come back at least once or more during the summer season to check on it again and do more work.

Saturday morning we split the group into two teams, gathered up our chainsaws, gas and oil, clippers, bucksaws and the like and headed out.

A side note for later: Just before leaving to work, I watched Dana walk off toward Sandy Stream with a case of beer to let it chill in the water for the day. But I didn't take notice (can you imagine?) of exactly where he went to hide it. More on that later...

Anyway, my crew had a very enjoyable afternoon clearing some 15-20 major blowdowns along the route. It's tough work, but we had fun with it.

Bucking up some blowdowns on the AT.

Clipping back the encroaching brush.

It's a simply stunning piece of trail that leads through beautiful boreal forest for a mile before breaking out onto the shore of East Carry Pond, where it heads north for a spectacular half mile or more.

At the sand beach we stopped to rest and snack. There we met up with local camp owners Frank and Sheila who were out trout fishing. We got to talking about the trail and I learned that the old East Carry Pond shelter still existed on the other side of the pond, which is the route the AT took when I thru-hiked years ago.

Well, of course, this got me all excited, so Frank very kindly offered to take me over there in his boat to see it. Oh yeah! And off we went... And no doubt, there it was, in pretty poor condition, but still standing. Right there where I left it after having lunch on an incredible October day 27 years ago. A trip back in time for sure. (Thanks Frank!).

Getting a ride across the pond from Frank.

Checking out the old East Carry Pond shelter.

When I returned to the far shore and the trail, we had a little more work to do.

A big spruce tree had a break in it and was threatening to topple over onto the trail. So we went to work on it. The complete story on the spruce tree will have to wait, but for now, suffice it to say, we spent a damn long time working to remove that tree before we gave up, gathered our tools and hiked out.

Me and the spruce that just wouldn't go down.

My hard working crew at the north end of the pond.

Back at the trail junction, hot and sweaty and tired by now, we remembered that there was cold beer hidden nearby. Dana's beer. Soon to be our beer, if we could find it. So we spread out and started searching up one side of the stream and down the other.

Although it didn't look good for awhile, some in my group expressed complete confidence that, if anybody could find beer hidden in the woods (or anywhere for that matter), it would be me.

They were right. Upstream, hidden in a crook in the stream under a hemlock, I found the beer. And immediately removed five cold cans, one for each of us, and returned triumphantly to the others. And proceeeded to quench our serious trail maintenance thirsts.

We went back to camp and made ourselves at home. Dana's crew pulled in awhile later, having knocked out 45 major blowdowns on the route from Arnold Bog all the way to West Carry Pond. Good job!

It was an enjoyable evening sitting about around the campfire, and a well earned night's rest.

Surprise, surprise. It was raining when we awoke Sunday morning, so we decided to bag any more work for the weekend, with the exception of going back and getting that intractable spruce tree on my section, which we did.

Most of the big crew in the rain Sunday morning.

Then we packed the vehicles and headed directly for a well-earned big breakfast/lunch at the world famous Farmington Diner.

Pitcher plants.

A big, beautiful fungus.