The Friends of Allegheny Wilderness will hold its Hickory Creek Wilderness Trail stewardship days on April 22 and 23 in Warren County.

Minimal tools such as axes and elbow grease are all we will use to remove woody debris and vegetation from the trail, in order to help perpetuate the rustic wilderness character of the trail.

We will leave all “step-over” logs (knee level and below) in place on the trail as the assets to the trail that they are. And of course, no power tools such as chainsaws are permitted in designated wilderness, so there will be no specialized training needed in that regard.

There is no charge to join this program, but participants will need to bring all of their own food, water and/or water filtration, camping equipment, and come fully prepared for any weather conditions we may encounter.

Also, we will likely spend some time continuing to clean spray paint off of the trees on the initial entry segment of the trail. We won’t spend an inordinate amount of time doing that because we will have bigger fish to fry in terms of clearing debris off the trail further in, but if you have a wire brush or paint scraper, etc. those kind of implements will be helpful for removing paint.

We cleaned a lot off last summer, but still will still have to take a little bit of time for this part of the project.

Trail stewardship is a fun and rewarding way to intimately experience the natural beauty of the Hickory Creek Wilderness first-hand, and help give back to America’s National Wilderness Preservation System that is such an important treasure and asset for all of us!

For more information or if you have questions, contact the Friends of Allegheny Wilderness by sending email to: info@pawild.org or call 814-723-0620.  Click Here to sign up for regular updates from Friends (look for the sign-up box at right).

[Posted: March 1, 2017]

3/6/2017