Blog

This covers the regularly scheduled workday for April. We were to finish the two new steps horse steps on the north side of the Hardage Mill Trail (7 and 8) and if we had time we were to perform cyclic maintenance on the northern end of the Hardage Mill Trail from where it meets the Noses Creek Trail to the Noses Creek bridge.

We had 5 crew leaders and 22 volunteers for the workday. The volunteers were from KSU Climbing Club (16), Hillgrove JROTC (2), the Atlanta Outdoor Club (3), and individuals that signed up on the Friends website (3).

I welcomed the volunteers, explained the workplan, did a safety brief, talked about Crew Leader Volunteer opportunities, issued tools, and we walked to the worksite.

Thanks to Issaic and Michael for staging the GAB by the bottom of the steps.

We started with the crew leaders and 5 volunteers filling in steps 7 and 8, line 2 of the workplan. We formed a bucket brigade filling the buckets, passing them up the hill and back down starting at step 7. We were about halfway done filling step 7 when the Calvary arrived, another Hillgrove volunteer and the 16 from KSU. As the 12 of us were getting tired. Seventeen fresh volunteers made a big difference. We reformed the bucket brigade passing buckets with GAB on the right side and empty buckets down the left side. Kirsten with Pam assisting supervised the filling of buckets and the movement of GAB on the lower section of steps, Tom supervised movement of GAB on the middle section with Lindsey assisting, Robert the movement of GAB on upper section of steps and the filling in of the steps. I moved between the three areas.

After filling the steps Kirsten and Lindsey took a team and trashed the area around the steps. Tom and Pam took a team and started deberming an area above the steps, line 3 of the workplan. Robert took another team to the next location on the Hardage Mill Trail that needed work. Once Kirsten and Lindsey we done they leapfrogged past Robert to the next section. We continued this leapfrog process moving towards the parking lot until we ran out of time finishing line 3. I monitored all three teams.

In summary we had a great team of volunteers. The 22 volunteers that attended made significant improvements to the Hardage Mill Trail.

Our next workday is Saturday, May 9th. We will be performing cyclic maintenance on the southern end of the Hardage Mill Trail and will meet at the Pigeon Hill parking lot.

Mike Collett

Trails Director

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This covers the Mount Paran Christan School volunteer day. We met at the Amphitheatre where I welcomed the volunteers. I did the safety brief at the tool shed and split the volunteers into three teams.

We had 5 crew leaders for the workday. The Crew Leaders were Bill, Donald, Robert W, Tom, and me. Bill did registration and Robert W and Tom handled parking. We had 22 volunteers.

Micheal and Christina stagged three piles of mulch in the picnic area.

Team 1: Tom; Tom’s team started spreading the pile near Stilesboro Road. When they finished, they cleared the concrete ditch at the trail going up Kennesaw Mountain, cleaning both sides. They went down the mountain to Kennesaw Mountain Drive. After finishing this they started deberming the Picket Line Trail until they ran out of time. Theu completely about half the trail.

Team 2: Robert W; Robert’s team started spreading the pile in the middle. When they finished, they cleared the concrete ditch from Kennesaw Mountain Drive to the drain past the wooden bridge. Upon finishing this they joined Tom’s team deberming the Picket Line Trail

Team 3: Bill; Bill’s team started spreading the pile near the field. When they finished, they moved to the pile in the parking lot, spreading it around the trees in the center area of the parking lot. They finished spreading about half the pile.

I bounced between the three teams, ensuring they were following the workplan, park procedures, and working safely.

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This covers the Better Trail Club Workday sponsored by REI and All Trails. We met at the picnic area where Brain Powell from REI welcomed everyone, introduced Stephine Asper from All Trails. Brain introduced me and I introduced Amanda. After Amanda welcomed everyone, I reviewed the workplan. We walked up to the tool shed where I reviewed the safety procedures and split the volunteers into three teams.

We had 10 crew leaders for the workday. The Crew Leaders were Bill, Curt, Donald, Fred, Geoff, Kirsten, Lindsey, Pam, Robert W, and me. We had 1 Crew Leader under instruction, Mark. Donald did registration and Mark and Geoff handled parking. When the workday started Geoff monitored the parking lot. We had 22 volunteers.

Team 1: Bill with Pam assisting; Bill’s team finished spreading mulch spreading around the trees in the center area of the parking lot. When finished they started performing cyclic maintenance on the Environmental Trail starting at the intersection and moving in a clockwise direction. They got to turnpike where they cleaned it and using material reclaimed from cleaning the conduits were able to cover exposed PVC pipes.

Team 2: Curt with Lindsay assisting; Curt’s team picked up where we left off on Friday working around the picnic area. They used swing blades to cut down the growth around the picnic tables on the perimeter of the picnic area and they spread out the remaining amount of mulch.

Team 3: Kirsten with Robert W and Mark assisting; Kirsten’s team started at the trail head to the Environmental Trail where they cleaned the area around the fencing. From there they worked in a counterclockwise direction performing cyclic maintenance until they got to the 24-Gun Trail head. They continued working on the 24-Gun Trail until they got to Old Mountain Road.

Donald and I bounced between the three teams, ensuring they were following the workplan, park procedures, and working safely.

I want to thank REI and All Trails for providing lunch by Chef Levy and ball caps at the Kennesaw REI store to all the volunteers after we finished.

Fred and I have more before and after pictures.

Mike Collett

Trails Director

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