More Stewards Of Stewart News

[Tim845]

I rode Stewart recently and saw some great maintenance & improvements...

"Dear Stewards of Stewart,

If you haven’t seen what the DEC has completed using a NYS grant designated to improve accessibility to and within the Stewart State Forest please bike, walk or ride up Maple to check out the new road to the Great Swamp and progress of the bridge/walkway construction over the Great Swamp.

In addition, the DEC crew did a tremendous job of improving the Lange Farm Trail and Lorraine Trail through the use of landscaped fabric, culverts and layers of crushed stone. These improvements now allow easy access between Maple and Weed Road as well as between Maple and Route 207. Next time you are riding in the forest please check these out and let us know your thoughts.

One condition of the grant includes the construction of a hiking/biking path from Scofield Trail to the walkway over the Great Swamp by Stewart volunteers. One purpose is to avoid having a bridge/walkway that goes to nowhere and another purpose is to have one more path to connect the West portion of Stewart to the East.

This means that we volunteers have the opportunity to scratch out a new trail that will be forever included on maps of Stewart and used by many. DEC marked the proposed trail with bright orange trail tape and the Stewards are asked to coordinate volunteers to construct the new trail.

Since many hands make work easier, the following is our present thinking:
1). Schedule two work days in September (9/13/14 and 9/28/14) dedicated to working on the new trail;
2). Cache all the SOS tools to the work area prior to our workday schedule and leave them there until our mission is completed and hope they are not stolen (volunteers will be told the secret location of the cache);
3). On workdays, transport volunteers to the intersection of Ridge Road and Scofield to hike into work area or bike all the way from our usual 09:00 meeting time and place at the Weed Road parking lot to the work area.

Your suggestions of course are greatly appreciated.

Our first priority is to literally “scratch” what will look better than a game trail from Scofield to the Great Swamp through the use of hedge trimmers, McLeods, Pulaskis, rakes, axes and hoes to scrape off the surface organics and using thick leather gloves to pull out shallow rooted vegetation. In this manner we should complete the semblance of a trail in short order and in the future conduct efforts to make it a more permanent trail. SOS tool supply is limited to a maximum count of 5 or 6 Pulaskis and McLeods. Please wear long pants and don’t forget to bring rugged work gloves.

In addition, we may have volunteers who are willing and able to work beyond the two scheduled work days and if so we request that you let SOS know your intention; and that you have completed the new DEC volunteer form and sent it to me; and we give DEC notice of the planned efforts and most importantly that you inform SOS of the date, work hours spent and the accomplishment so we can keep an accurate record of all volunteer efforts for this project.

Please spread the word and enthusiasm to all who use the forest (spring, summer, fall and winter) that this is a communal effort.

Thank you."
http://stewardsofstewart.org/
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Pedal, b*tches!!

[GG]

We had three volunteers on our September 13th work day.

Our mission is to create a new trail requested by the DEC to connect Scofield to the walkway across the Great Swamp.
We made great progress and have more work to do. See the attached photos of Michael and Darren making first tracks on the trail...

...If you cannot make the work days you can still work on the new trail...Be sure to inform me prior to your work date so that DEC is timely notified. Also, let me know the total work hours you spent so we can keep an accurate record of the total time volunteers worked on the trail.

PLEASE NOTE OUR WORK DAY SCHEDULE CHANGE: September 28th is changed to September 27th. Meet at Weed Road parking lot at 09:00 to continue work on new trail.
The re-scheduled work day for October 11th is changed to October 5th.

We are looking forward to having a few more volunteers on September 27th since it is exciting to see the development of a nice new trail that will be used by many.

Thank you. Tom Gustainis