“Good Work”

I spent a good day working with an Iron County Forestry Department forester out on Uller. We took the ICF gator from Weber Lake to ‘Harold’s Pass’ along the main stem. There were quite a few dead and wind falls to get off the trail. We like to do it under these conditions… not the 15-30 cm of wet, heavy snow we used to have to do it in. I really detest digging through snow to get to something we could have removed on a nice fall day.

Working on Uller is getting easier thanks mostly to the effort and equipment the Forestry Department has invested on the trail. As we’ve transcended a ‘survival mode’ of trail maintenance, we now have the luxury of looking at a different set of projects to try to accomplish.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of exposed rocks on Uller’s trail bed. Most are smaller than a basketball and are loose. With a pry-bar, some time and attention to detail, a series of fall trail projects could make the trail easier to open, groom and nicer to hike and bike during the summer. The project(s) could be done completely by hand or, once we get beyond say, Tower Rd or ‘Harold’s Pass’, we could gator a crew out there. All we’d need is a pry-bar or two.

Someone once said ‘Happiness is the sublime exaltation of good work done well’. This, and a number of other trail projects on Montreal and Uller are ‘good work’.

Get out. Wear off a little shoe sole. Get a sore shoulder or two. Sweat some and taste how good plain, cold water is when sitting on a rock out there.

Just tell us when you get the urge, we’ll be heading out too. Z