In addition to their primary mission of working with local communities to ensure increased wilderness protection is a priority of the stewardship of the Allegheny National Forest in Warren County, Friends of Allegheny Wilderness over the last 17 years has also been faithfully stewarding the 13-mile Hickory Creek Wilderness hiking trail.
FAW has also performed ecological restoration of sites adjacent to and within the Hickory Creek Wilderness, as well as helped to remove voluminous amounts of refuse from the Allegheny Islands Wilderness and environs.
The ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ and thousands of hours of labor FAW volunteers have contributed to the stewardship of the Allegheny National Forest is of incalculable value to the U.S. Forest Service and to the public.
Over the weekend of July 28 and 29, the FAW trail crew hiked into the Hickory Creek Wilderness off-trail from the west side to their work site.
The trail just above Jack’s Run on the west side of the trail loop had been blocked by a significant windthrow area for the last year.
A user-created ‘reroute’ sweeping circuitously around this blowdown area had become established.
Some of the large-diameter black cherry (Prunus serotina) trees that the group cleared in order to restore the original trail corridor — using only non-motorized hand tools such as axes.
This section of the Hickory Creek Wilderness trail may have been adversely affected by a straight-line wind event, with numerous trees down across the trail, all oriented in the same direction.
October 5-7
FAW will go out again to continue clearing the Hickory Creek Wilderness trail over the weekend of October 5th through the 7th. To volunteer or ask questions about this upcoming event, please contact the organization by sending email to: info@pawild.org.
For more information on programs, initiatives and other upcoming events, visit the Friends of Allegheny Wilderness website.
(Photo: FAW trail crew: Steve Zanoni, John Podeszek, Jean Gomory, Tom Malecki, Jude Bobnar, Luke Bobnar, Alex Bobnar, Grace Tillotson, and Kirk Johnson.)
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