Yearly Archives

This covers the regularly scheduled workday for March. We were to remove, repair, or replace fencing from the bridge on Pigeon Hill to the section of fencing below French’s Loop.

We had nine crew leaders for the workday, seven Trail Ambassadors, two PSARs, and 83 volunteers. The volunteers were from Hillgrove JROTC (26), Allatoona JROTC (2), a combination of Kell, Lassiter, and Pope JROTC (11), KSU Delta Sigma Pi (8), KSU Cross County Team (20), Impact Partners (8), Airgas (3) and individuals that signed up on the Friends website (5).

Group 1 did lines 1, 2, and 3 of the workplan with volunteers from Kell, Lassiter, and Pope JROTC unit, Airgas, and part of the KSU Cross County Team. They also did some deberming from the bridge to Burnt Hickory Road when finished.

Group 2 did lines 4 and 5 of the workplan with volunteers from KSU Delta Sigma Pi, Allatoona JROTC unit, Impact Partners, individuals, and part of the KSU Cross County Team.

Group 3 did lines 6 and 7 of the workplan with volunteers from the Hillgrove JROTC unit.

Fred took pictures and I bounced between the three groups, ensuring they were following the workplan and park procedures. Geoff monitored the parking lot.

Thanks to Norm for getting the port-a-potty in place and Michael for bringing the new fencing over.

We have new Crew Leader training scheduled for Saturday, April 18 from 8:30 to 1:00.

Our next workday is Saturday, April 14th. We will be working on the horse steps on the Hardage Mill Trail. If we have extra volunteers, we will perform cyclic maintenance starting at the northern intersection of the Noses Creek with the Hardage Mill Trail to the northern side of Noses Creek. We will meet at the Pigeon Hill parking Lot.

Mike Collett

Trails Director

This covers the regularly scheduled workday for February. We were able to finish the horse steps on the north side of the Hardage Mill Trail. We had 10 crew leaders for the workday.

The 36 volunteers were from Hillgrove JROTC (28), the Atlanta Outdoor Club (8, Kirsten and I are part of that number or 6 volunteers), and 2 individuals that signed up on the Friends website.

I welcomed the volunteers, explained the workplan, did a safety brief, talked about Crew Leader Volunteer opportunities, and we walked to the intersection of the Noses Creek Trail and the north side of the Hardage Mill Trail where we issued tools and walked to the worksite.

Thanks to Zoe and Issaic for staging the GAB by the bottom step we were able to start filling in the forms immediately. We formed a bucket brigade with our volunteers filling the buckets passing them up the hill on one side of the steps to the step that needed filled than passing the empty buckets back down to other side to be refilled with Tom and Robert ensuring everything was done safely. This worked so well that we had moved two thirds of the GAB staged in the first hour. I sent half the Hillgrove kids and Kirsten and Curt back to the other pile of GAB on the Noses Creek Trail and had them fill buckets with GAB from that pile. At the same time, I called Michael Christman and asked him if he could drive a Gator over so that we could load it with GAB and take it to the worksite. About 30 minutes later he arrived as we finished the staged pile of GAB. With the trips Michael made by driving the Gator and the hard work of our volunteers we not only finished filling in the remaining step, we were also able to add GAB to steps started in January filling them to the proper level. As we were finishing the step Aaron and Aashrith took a group of volunteers to trash out the trail creep on one side of the trail created by those going around the unfinished steps and address erosion concerns on the other side caused by the building of the steps.

Overall, this workday could not have gone any better. Thanks to Michael not only driving the Gator to the worksite but also driving loads of GAB over to the worksite.

Our next workday is Saturday, March 14th. We will be performing either cyclic maintenance on the back side of Little Kennesaw Mountain from the saddle of Pigeon Hill to the top of Little Kennesaw or we will be repairing and replacing the fencing in the same area. We will meet at the Pigeon Hill parking lot. This may change based on the needs of the park. Regardless we will still meet at the Pigeon Hill parking lot

Mike Collett

Trails Director

Over the last few years, the scheduled workday has had to be cancelled due to too cold, rain, and on one occasion snow. Based on this history no workday was scheduled, however tool shed cleaning was scheduled. This year held true to form. The tool shed cleaning scheduled for Saturday, 1/10, was cancelled due to inclement weather. This has been rescheduled for Saturday, 1/31.

Kennesaw State University’s (KSU) Alliance of Sororities and Fraternities asked to perform a workday on the third Saturday, January 17^th to celebrate MLK day. They were scheduled to fill in the horse step forms with GAB on the Hardage Mill Trail that Zoe and Issaic built the week leading up to the workday.

We had 8 crew leaders for the workday. The Crew Leaders were Aashrith, Bill, Curt, Eric, Fred, Kirsten, Rich, and me. We had an Ambassador; the Ambassador was Yvonne helping Amanda. They did registration and directed the volunteers to the parking area. We had 36 volunteers. The volunteers were from various KSU Sororities and Fraternities.

Amanda welcomed the volunteers and introduced me. I led the volunteers to the worksite, reviewed the workplan, did a safety brief, talked about Crew Leader Volunteer opportunities, and introduced Ladrick, Michael, and Norm. I then split the KSU volunteers into two groups.

Kirsten leading with Curt, and Aashrith assisting, led the first group (12) shoveling GAB into buckets and loading them into the two Gators.

Bill and Rich took the second group (24) to the worksite where they dumped the GAB into the forms, racked the GAB level, tapped the GAB down, and returned the buckets to the Gator.

Eric and Ladrick drove the two Gators taking the full buckets to the worksite and returning them to be refilled.

Fred took pictures and I bounced between the two groups, ensuring they were following the workplan and park procedures.

We moved over 5000 lbs. of GAB and filled two of the six forms. We started the third form, the largest. Thanks to Zoe and Issaic for the creation of the forms and Norm and Michael driving tools and Gators to and from the worksite. Because of this prep and assistant, we accomplished a lot.

Our next workday is Saturday, February 14th. We will perform cyclic maintenance on the back side of Little Kennesaw Mountain from the saddle of Pigeon Hill to the top of Little Kennesaw. The switchback needs to be repaired along with some of the stone steps. If we have extra time and volunteers we will deberm as needed. We will meet at the Pigeon Hill parking lot. This may change based on the needs of the park. Regardless we will still meet at the Pigeon Hill parking lot.

Mike Collett

Trails Director