"Thank You" Message to our volunteers

Here's a message that everyone who works on trails should be proud of! (The message was directed to members of the Central Texas Trail Tamers and others that have worked on trails in Bastrop State Park near Bastrop, TX.)

- On Fri, 3/18/11, Jennifer Bristol <Jennifer.Bristol@tpwd.state.tx.us> wrote:

From: Jennifer Bristol
Subject: Trails

Dear Volunteers- Today we had a fire that had the potential of spreading into the park, but thankfully did not. I wanted to extend a GIANT thank you to everyone who has helped us maintain our trails over the past few years. Not only do your efforts allow park visitors a means to journey through the Lost Pines and enjoy them at their own pace; you also assist with helping us maintain safe corridors to get ATVs and safety equipment into the woods. Today I was grateful for all of the hours of brushing and trail maintenance that you have done that allowed us to be able to quickly move along the trails and evacuate guests during this very busy weekend. Thankfully the fire did not (or has not) entered the park. However- if it had, the trails would have served as a holding line to try to contain the fire. Our trails are a vital asset to the park both as a means to enjoy the beautiful forest and as a means to protect the area from wild fires. Thank you again for all that you do to help maintain the trails at Bastrop and Buescher State Parks. We couldn’t do it without you!

I look forward to seeing you all soon on another trail work party day!

Jennifer Bristol

Resource Specialist & Pool Manager
Bastrop State Park
Bastrop, TX 78602
3005 HWY 21 East
512-321-3740

FEB. 2011 PRESIDENTS DAY WORK SESSION - Davy Crockett NF

PROJECT REPORT By Raymond Fore:
We had 13 volunteers and two park employees work Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and part of Monday, (Feb. 17-21, 2011). Got a heck of a lot of work done that would probably not have been done through the usual Forest Service schedule due to staff and budget shortages.

Friday, the 18th, we removed several very large trees from an archeologically sensitive area. This meant cutting the trees into small enough blocks to be hauled by hand to the park road. The pieces were then loaded on a trailer and hauled to a dump site. Saturday, the volunteers were put into two teams. One team went to Walnut Creek camp site on the 4 C trail. That site had been hit by hurricane Ike and needed to be cleared. We also cleared a site for a new privy to be built to replace the previous one that had been destroyed by the hurricane. The second team went to the bridges in the Big Slough Wilderness area which is also on the 4 C trail. There they removed a cable hand rail and replaced it with rails built with 2 x 4x. All the lumber had to be hauled by hand since no mechanical devices could be used in the wilderness area. That meant walking a mile, round trip, to haul two pieces of lumber to the work site. There were over 100 pieces of lumber used. We also built new barriers to two new parking lots and removed many dangerous dead trees from around camp sites at Ratcliff Lake.

These are the Trail Tamers who showed up: Marvin Heller, Terence Donovan, Charlie Grant, Mike Rodgers, Bill Nelson, Wes Morrow. I know the other volunteers are not members.

We all enjoyed the work, the good food, the great camp fires, and the great bull that was spread pretty thick. All want to return to our next work session, so guess it went well. The group was hard working and the Forest Service is pleased with what we did.