[at-l] Re: Trail Volunteers

[sloetoe@yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- RoksnRoots@aol.com wrote:
> I'm unfamiliar with your trail maintenance background Sloetoe,

### Then stop now. Nixon was in office when I built my first
trail from scratch; Carter was in office when I first led the
crew. My ATC Member number is 4790. A number of ATC chairs have
come and gone since I FIRST began receiving the ATC's Register.
I was doing trail work on the AT before you *hiked* it. (You
benefitted from my ass-busting, bub. And, um, I was doing all of
this well before my retirement age, to boot, to address another
GREAT THEORY thread.) I was analysing end-game Trailway
acquistion difficulties for graduate credit before that, and had
evaluated the WMNF Forest Plan for college credit before *that*.
In just the past five years, I've wrestled with placidly
user-ignorant Forest Supervisors; won over US Senate staff;
enthused state forest and natural resource employees to work
together; riled and placated like-minded lynch mobs (co-opted
equestrians, at that!); and nastied my thumbs as much in
stuffing envelopes as I have in playing John Henry, dual-tooling
down the trail with hoe and weed bar to complete a wilderness
trail's maintenance ALONE, and LONG after the USFS personnel had
bagged the project on a boiling hot day and shipped out to the
trailhead. I have, alone, cleared 26.2 miles of trail of
blowdowns in a single WINTER day, chainsawyering away well after
dark, in violation of just about every lick of saw-safety known
to man. (Oh, and without a flashlight, speaking of night hiking.
Patience is *definitely* a virtue.) At Christmas just this year,
I wrote a nice note to four New England senators at the behest
of the Connecticut Park & Trails Association, supporting the 3M
trail. Two weeks ago, I posted a Data Book-style listing of the
features of Indiana's 50 mile Knobstone Trail, to allow users to
plan and more fully utilize this neat little trail, and
not-accidently, reduce user-pressures on *other* trails, like
the AT. Last week, I got a bug to make real an idea about
popularizing ALDHA's LNT-in-Town campaign with a (it turns out)
great looking patch, gambled and spent close to $300 I don't
have, and post-Ruck, may get to enjoy opportunity to see more
involvement in that (um) *very* neat project. And right now, I'm
developing a posting for Ultrarunning Magazine (check your March
and April issue, y'all!), as part of organizing an end-to-end
run of that same (Indiana) Knobstone Trail... There's a LOT you
don't know.

### And me? I'm one of the *puppies* on this list. Why not ask
the Owens about the work they do in Pee-Aye? Quiz Mrs. Gorpage
about how she managed to rejuvenate a Vermont privy without
spending a hundred thousand dollars. Scope Walt Daniels' or
Cosmo Catalano's posts of ATC or AMC activities. Look on the web
for pictures of Dee and POG volunteering various trail
capacities. Inquire of Navigator when her Florida Trail work
will hit the stands. (Trying to hit the states north-to-south
here.....) Hell, RnR, my *kids* have walked more trail miles
with a trash bag in their hands than many trail *users*. (Oh,
alright: yes, it was for money. That $0.25 a pop for each
can/bottle/bag/possum skull... that's one way how they funded
this years' boots. [Theirs, not mine. To be sure.])

### But did you EVER notice that when these people (and so many
more... Sly, ORR, sAunTerer, Pittsbughistan) post to the list,
they mention their activities IN PASSING? And what of the at-l's
*lurkers*? What you REFUSE to get is the simple message that the
at-l is a virtual campfire before the virtual shelter, where we
can socialize with like-minded persons about LIFE. We RELAX
here. It is NOT the bully-pulpit for screeds (great word, BJack)
and harangues from insensitive, self-absorbed boobs who're
*astoundingly* ignorant of the alienation towards list traffic,
hiking, the Appalachian Trail, trail work, trail advocacy, and
even an outdoors lifestyle that their ill-informed, idiotic
posts create. ... ... Shoot: paving the AT would do SO much to
simplify my life right now.... Luscious idea. I mean it.

### As I've requested before, why PLEASE don't you quit whining
and DO something. But if you do actually DO something for a
trail ??? don't come to THIS list and *brag* about it, because
that's NOT what this list is about.

bragging for tonight,
Sloetoe
(once-upon-a-time chair of
a trail-*making* organization)

=====
Spatior, Nitor, Nitor, In Nitor!

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