It is Easter weekend, and we seem to have taken a momentary diversion from Spring. After temperatures reached into the low 80s on last Tuesday's bridge building day, a cold front plunged through the area, bringing nightime temps into the teens or twenties. We should begin a slow stead warmup this week. Our next bridge building day is scheduled for Tuesday. This west side bridge will span a deep swampy gully. Our make-do solution has been to throw a number of dead trees across it. Hikers need to carefully tread across these at the risk of twisting an ankle or slipping into the mud. Once we get this one built, trail access will be dramatically improved. The last two small bridges span creeks that are fairly easily crossed on makeshift board and log bridges. The biggest challenge once again will be getting the lumber to the site. I think we can get it most of the way there on a Gator or 4-wheeler, but it will have to be carried the last 250 yards. I borrowed a chainsaw this weekend in order to clear a few deadfalls that came down across the path this winter. Liam and I headed out this morning to get this task done before next Tuesday's bridge build. We encountered our friends and new neighbors, Phil and Amy, who came out for a morning walk to check out the bridge. They were excited to see it in place. Phil has been working with me on the trail since the beginning, and he was the one who came up with the design for the bridges, and put together the estimates of the lumber needed. But he's a little busy these days--he and amy just bought a house in our neighborhood and moved in last weekend. They are expecting their first child in a few weeks, and Phil is graduating from College in less than a month. All of this meant that Phil was unable to come out for the first bridge build day. We nonethless couldn't have done it without him. The village crew followed his plans and they worked perfectly. It was a cold and gray morning, but after getting the chainsaw started it began to snow. The snow fell steadily for about a half an hour, and then as quickly as it came on, the sky cleared, the sun came out, and the snow event was over. Snow covered the green leaves emerging on spring's early bloomers, and weighted down the many spider's webs that had gone up in the last week. It was a beautiful spring day.
Here's a picture of the next bridge building site:
Here I am clearing deadfalls from the path:
A view of the lake decorated in April snow:
A view of the east side trail from the west side. The white line of snow marks the trail:
A spider's web covered in snow:
The east side grove of pines in the snow:
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