A Great Thank-You Letter from the staff at Davy Crockett National Forest!

I would like to tell EVERYONE, that I
personally appreciate all the hard work
and great sense of humors.

It truely is a pleasure to work with CTTT;
each time is a new wonderful adventure.
I hope that everyone had a great time and
got to do some things that they wanted. I
hope everyone will come again soon...And
enjoyed the NEW folks!!!! I have enclosed
some pictures of the crews working.

Sorry, I did not get pictures of the crew
(George, Jim) repairing ADA trail nor of
crew installing new Portal sign (Steve/Earl)
and also built 2 new boat racks. Neither
did I get the infamous Group picture.
I truely failed on that...My apologies.

Happy Trails.
Pearlie

Pearlie Green
Davy Crockett National Forest
18551 State Highway 7 East
Kennard, TX 75847
PH: (936)655-2299 Fax: (936)655-2817
email: pearliegreen@fs.fed.us

Trip Report - Davy Crockett National Forest (Feb. 14-16, 2009)

Hey gang,

Again, another great work session! Not only did we complete all of the primary projects but also several secondary ones. Pearlie and Merlinda are well aware of how we work and at the first of the week when I told them that we had 20 signed up, panic. Both got together and luckily came up with additional projects. Everything looked great and could only have gotten this way by your hard work and pride in what you do. Thanks.

The new path from the restroom to the viewing deck at the Neches Bluff is ready for use. It meets ADA specs. The viewing deck has had a lot of use. It is our hope that with this path and the new restroom, it will get more. Thanks to Mike Rodgers and his crew for that project. Those working on that project besides Mike were, Raylene Welch, Bob Weglarz, Martha Spetseris, Derly Rivera, Vick Hines, and Pearlie Green, ranger. Looks great!

Hurricane Ike managed to take out the Forest Service portal sign on Highway 7. Steve Baker and Earl Connors rebuilt, and painted the base. They then attached the new sign which really looked good and should be there for years to come. They also managed to build several boat racks at the lake, and rebuild a table that was destroyed by the storm. Merle Monroe, Merlinda's Dad, also helped on this project Sunday. Good job guys.

The ADA trail within the lake proper was also damaged by Ike. George Boemerman and Jim Britt repaired the trail by replacing all the landscape timbers that needed replacing and repacking road base in the holes left when trees on the trail fell. The trail still meets ADA specs. Good job you two.

There are 7 bridges on the northern part of the 4 C Trail that receives a lot of damage from Ike. The bridge crew of Ivan and Judy McGowan, Chuck Lundstedt, Andy Waters, Dwight Riley, Merlinda Schory and Dad Merle, and Raymond Fore made up the Saturday crew. We rebuilt over 100 feet of bridge and replaced almost half of the foot treads in the 400 feet of the seven bridges. The Sunday crew of Riley(just Riley), Andy, Terence, Derly, Mike, and Pearlie added hand rails over the 200 or so feet of the bridges. The most difficult part of this task was getting the materials to the job site which was a half to three quarters of a mile from the nearest road. The completed project looked good and should provide safe crossing to hikers for years to come.

Sunday morning, Chuck Lundstedt and crew began updating the pads within the RV loop. They pulled up the leading edge of each camp pad and put in road base to build a ramp. The leading edge of the sites were made of concrete blocks approximately 4 " x 12 " x 36 ". Heavy work but with the aide of a tractor, most of the sites were completed. This will make getting in the campsites with RVs easier. Good job, crew.

Since we couldn't run off all members Sunday, a Monday morning crew of Steve, Earl, Jim, Terence, Derly, Chuck, Pearlie, Merlinda, Merle, and Raymond completed the task started the day before. We completed restructuring the campsites within the RV loop. This crew finished off the work session with bar-b-que sandwiches from a local stand in Ratcliff. Good eating. Good job.

I'd like to thank all of you for the hard work each of you did. There was a lot of good fellowship in the evenings and even during the workday, a lot of joking and bull. That makes for good work and good memories. The campfire helped. So did the good food, beer, wine, and crazy stories from storytellers George Boemerman and Earl Connors. We'll see all of you next year. Again thanks for making my job easy.

Ray Fore

Thank-you Letter from Sierra Club!

Work Day at Bamberger Ranch Preserve - Oct. 25, 2008

On a beautiful & warm October day, seven Trail Tamers, plus two other volunteers, headed out to the Bamberger Ranch Preserve to begin working on a new water conservation project that the owner, J. David Bamberger, has created. We drove up to the top of one of the many plateaus on the preserve where a bulldozer had scraped up dirt and rock following the contours of the plateau. Our task was to rake the dirt and rock into long, high berms on the downslope side so that when it rains, the water would be stopped from running down the slope and carrying soil with it. The idea is to "trap" the water so it will soak in and percolate through the honeycombed rock in order to recharge the "hanging aquifers" located on the preserve. Everything about the preserve is unique and these aquifers are simply another thing that's different.

We completed a lot more work than was anticipated and when it was time to go, we drove back down to the old general store for a feast of tamales, beans, chips & salsa plus an assortment of cold beverages. When we were through eating, a few people left but those of us that remained were treated to a trip to the man-made bat cave that was built by Mr. Bamberger. It now has about 250,000 bats residing in it and some of them were still there and hadn't migrated yet! We got a really close-up look at them when Mr. Bamberger decided to take us inside the cave (he calls it the Chiroptorium). That was quite an experience! Not sure I want to do that again, though! I'm not one who thinks that bats get caught in your hair, so that didn't bother me even though I could hear them flying close to me, but standing in a thick mat of bat guano and knowing that flesh-eating cave beetles were everywhere DID bother me! That's because those beetles can devour a dead bat (or any other dead creature) in a matter of minutes, so it gave me a creepy feeling and I didn't stand in one spot for very long! A couple of the ladies went back outside after only a few minutes so they missed most of the fun. Oh, well. It was a treat to be shown something like this because it's been a decades-long effort on the part of Mr. Bamberger to try and attract bats to this cave and hope that they would stay. It looks like he has finally succeeded!

My thanks to fellow Trail Tamers..Jerry Levenson, Martha Davies, Gardner Ayers, Chuck Kichline, Mary Arnett and Martha Spetseris; plus volunteers, Gina Meagher and Bill Marsh, for all the work that was completed that day.

No "Fire" in St. Elmo, Colorado – by Jerry Levenson

In July 2008, eleven Trail Tamers joined about thirty volunteers from the Continental Divide Trail Alliance to work just below Tin Cup Pass, a few miles south of Buena Vista. Our goal was to replace a steep, eroding section of the CDT by building several switchbacks.

We all gathered in the ghost town of St Elmo (Motto: More chipmunks than people) on July 16. The road up to Tin Cup Pass requires 4-wheel drive, so we made sure everyone and their gear found a ride. At the campsite, we set up our tents, ate lunch, and went for a tour of the work project. CDTA and the Salinas Ranger District were well prepared with tools, and we spent an hour or two at work before walking down for dinner. CDTA provided the kitchen, the food, and a chef.

The next two days began early and ended when the afternoon showers arrived. Actually, we ended a little late on Thursday, resulting in an hour of grumpy, wet, and cold campers, but by dinnertime, we were all better. Another complication was, about two hundred years ago someone planted a few trees right in the middle of our new trails! Vigorous work with a Pulaski took care of the smaller stumps, and CDTA had some experienced people who used chain saws and a cable-grip to pull out the bigger ones.

No work was scheduled on Saturday because that coincided with the annual TrailFest exhibition. The Forest Service and many local and national outfitters had booths set up in McPhelemy Park in Buena Vista, and a dozen guided trips brought visitors out to various destinations along the CDT. After cleaning up, four of us went up to Leadville for dinner at The Grille, a highly recommended destination for any trip to central Colorado.

We completed three switchbacks, each one about fifty yards. A separate project, higher up the trail, was tackled by a Scout group and they completed another fifty yards, including building up a section of trail with logs and many, many buckets of soil. And another group built a plank bridge across an eight-foot wide creek. This task was more than just hard work; it also required a bit of engineering skill to position the bridge high enough to withstand a flood.