Americorps Outing, January 22-24, 2004

Bruce Bailey and his fine group at Americorps - St. Louis have a long history of working on the Ozark Trail.  For three days in January they continued their excellent work by constructing a bridge, installing a culvert, and building new trail on the Middle Fork section.  Here are pictures from the first two days of their work.

These folks did a fantastic job, and we can't wait for their next visit! 

(click on an image for a full-size view; ~170KB each)

A Group Shot.  Front row: Dana, Patrick, Ann, Austin, Serena, Ron.  Back Row: Ben, Hayley, Joe, Ian, Sarah, Chris, Jinky.	Bruce Bailey, the Executive Directory of the St. Louis office, is on the left.  Thanks, Bruce!
The "Culvert Crew"	The trail crosses the output from a spring, making the surrounding trail a boggy mess.  A culvert will fix this.
After digging in the muck, a 12' pipe is put into place.	Creek rock was hauled in to finish the tread.
A side view of the finished culvert.	Another group worked on a short bridge over another small waterway.  Here are the footings.
Stringers are tested for size and position.	The completed bridge (2 days later in the snow)
Time to build trail.  Step 1: establish the upper edge.	Chris takes his first whacks on his section.
This work was part of a 100-yard 'hand-line' on a steep stump-filled slope that was too much for the trail dozer.	Step 2: start grubbing.
Jinky and Dana hack away to get down to our final tread depth.	Ben had to remove a lot of soil, roots, and rock from this piece of trail.
Voila!  Finished trail! (We'll cut that stump on the next trip)	Dana tamps down dirt over a stump hole.
Before...	After!  Ian did a great job on this section.
Again, many thanks to Americorps!	The finished trail, two days later (after an ice & sleet storm).

Remember, you can click on an image for a full-size view (opens in a new window).

Wait... you want more pictures?  How about a 14 mug shots?  Click here to view.