Janesville Sept. 15-18 2011

Janesville Sept. 15-18 2011, a set on Flickr.

Janesville 2011 - Leah's Pics

Janesville 2011 - Leah's Pics, a set on Flickr.

Leah's Pics from Janesville

A Thorny Situation - Janesville Recap

The Ice Age Trail Alliance’s Mobile Skills Crew finally headed down to the southern part of the state and Janesville welcomed us with open arms September 15-18. We’ve become acquainted with Rock County over the past few years with, well rockwork. This time the rockwork was put aside (mostly) in favor of buckthorn removal and classic 4-step. Thanks to a freshly signed easement, the Ice Age Trail will add a few more miles through a housing development and the Janesville Arboretum.

Tim teaching classic 4-step

Crews set out Thursday to start the work through the easement area by removing buckthorn and constructing that beautiful tread across the steep hillside. The day went well and apparently so did the evening. Lisa showed up just as the train was leaving for karaoke. If you couldn’t guess, Randy was the conductor. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with the zeal and seriousness he has for singing karaoke. They struck out at the first place as the karaoke was the following week, but Randy would not be derailed. Determined, they chugged ahead to the next place and found karaoke! A few locals were about to leave the station but when Randy showed up, they changed their ticket and stayed. Getting people to stay at a bar just because you show up is quite the compliment. Nice work Randy. To round out Thursday night, a couple vagabonds from the hinterlands of Wisconsin arrived at midnight to make sure the beer trailer was still functioning (it was).

Friday greeted everyone with overcast skies and not a chill to the wind, but a nip to the air (apologies to Robert Hunter). After a nice walk in, tread crews spread out through the easement section, cutting their way into the arid soil. Everyone thought they could breathe easier with the smoke from the wildfires in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota staying to the East, but the dust generated by the wild trail builders cloaked the landscape with an ethereal haze. While the tread crews were having their fun, Wollmer and “I volunteer harder than I work” Jason were burning through tanks of gas in the chainsaws, murdering as many buckthorn trees as they possibly could. The buckthorn never had a chance.

Lisa working off her karaoke hangover

Matt, Barbara and Tim R. were leading tread crews and doing an excellent job. I, on the other hand, was in the midst of another underwhelming crew leader performance. I feel sorry for Lisa, Tom, Kevin and Allan who were on my crew and still managed to build nice trail. After grubbing out a few stumps, I decided a rock wall was needed to shore up the tread. Randy and Professor Englund were nonplused by the idea, but I forged ahead anyways. The wall started off OK, but soon I succumbed to my arocknaphobia – a fear of rock walls, and left the rest of the rockwork to a Saturday crew. With a track record of underperforming, I was rechristened as the Undercut, because I’m a cut below the rest. Now that’s a name I can live up…err down to!

Lance was leading the charge digging post-holes with the guys from Recap. He taught them a few things over the course of the day. The most important lesson being to get back to lunch quick and snag a bucket to sit on. As Lance said “I know buckets when I see ‘em.”

The best part of a workday is when everyone gets to walk out on freshly constructed tread. It’s always amazing, seeing all the work that had been done since the morning and how well everything was done. Walking out on Friday, we enjoyed a plethora of newly installed signage posts, still wet to the touch yellow blazes, a few hundred feet of handcrafted tread across a steep slope and a trail corridor that had been given the Heimlich after choking on buckthorn.

The one thing I kept hearing was how excellent the food was, especially the vegetarian options. The meat eaters were drooling at lunch while the plant eaters savored the pita sandwiches filled with hummus, guacamole, cucumbers, sprouts and maybe a tomato or two. The best kind of food is the free kind, but when free food is also delectable, it’s an added bonus. Great job Rock County chapter with project support!

Food wasn’t the only thing free, as a beer trailer with a couple free barrels from Gray’s Brewery in Janesville was provided. Thank you Gray’s! The first project at Devils Staircase in July of 2007 also had a beer trailer from Gray’s and was probably the greatest thing to happen to MSC events since the Mobile Skills Crew was created. The next project at Scuppernong in August also kept the bar raised by having a barrel from the Delafield Brewhouse giving warmth to the wet volunteers. We returned to Janesville for the October wild card that year and so did the beer trailer. Since then, there has been talk of finding a brewery to sponsor us, but no luck so far. Nothing tastes better after a long day on the trail than a frosty cold Wisconsin beer. Let’s hope a generous brewery steps up to quench our thirst!

Yep folks, they did it again!!!

Saturday rolled around and everyone was in a good mood because I was gone, but someone still had to clean up the mess I left with the rock wall the day before. Jason, my coworker, was unlucky enough to draw the short straw and was put in charge of the rock wall. This is a familiar spot for him because he is constantly improving the trail I build at work. The rest of the crews continued working on tread, corridor clearing and the always-present signage. The corridor clearing crews had to tango with buckthorn, which is a pain in the butt to deal with. It never falls over when cut, it just hangs there because its branches are tangled together with anything thing else that dares grow in the area (usually more buckthorn). Dragging it is even a tiresome endeavour as those same branches reach out and grab other trees and branches that litter the forest floor. It’s hard work and they did a great job!

The infamous rock wall

Ceci and Jo(elle) made their triumphant return to MSC from their summers of trail work out west, bringing another batch of UW-Hoofers with them. Well for Jo it may not have been triumphant because she won the coveted pink pick mattock award. The original pink pick was lost last year, but Struve was kind enough to create another one. If you are unfamiliar with the pink pick, it was a pick head that had been broken, painted pink, and taped back together with a bouquet of flowers in the handle hole for the final adornment. If a tool was broken at an event, the person who broke the tool was awarded the pretty pink pick until someone else broke a tool. Joelle snapped off the tip of her handsaw blade. I like that the pink pick is back in the mix, but awarding the “trophy” for a broken saw blade seems a little cheap to me. Most of the time the handsaw still works with a broken tip and there are a few people every project breaking a saw blade. Everyone’s broken one. The pink pick should be reserved for a broken McLeod, pick, Pulaski, or when Jason broke a post-hole digger earlier this year (or when I broke a new chainsaw blade at Tuscobia…). Now if only we can figure out what happened to Wood Tick and resurrect him. Anyways, congrats Jo!

Matt contemplating how to win the pink pick award

The day turned to evening, but the good times did not stop. There were reports of Randy and Colleen pushing Lance and a motorcycle down the driveway while he tried popping the clutch. I do not know if they were successful. Professor Englund’s little ones, Aspen and June, were running around playing games and amusing everyone like usual. Ceci and Gail from Trails Zen, the 2010 Crew Leader Training Class, received their crew leader hats. Congrats ladies!

Evening gave way to night as Rachel brought out a bottle of Seagrams Black Honey Whiskey. This has become a Saturday night tradition in the mold of the famous Sheep Dip. For years, every Saturday night of a project, a bottle of Sheep Dip was opened, cork thrown in the fire, and passed around until finished. To everyone’s dismay, Sheep Dip became increasingly difficult to find until no one could find it any more. Perhaps the Black Honey Whiskey is the new Sheep Dip!

Brad stayed up pretty late Saturday night and everyone was watching him so he couldn’t pull a crary. Being the Crary though, he still managed to sneak away into the night like smoke from a campfire on a calm night. He’s good. While Buttercup slipped away, Brigit filled the void and made sure the drinks kept flowing. While she failed in finishing the rest of the kegs, she did do her share to finish off the bottle of Korbel. I had skipped out Friday to go to the Badger game in Chicago, but Randy made sure I was still a part of the festivities by giving me a late night call. I’m not sure what was said, but it sounded like everyone was having a great time. Classic Randy.

The light rain that fell Friday afternoon surprised us, but the rain Sunday morning did not. Most people took their tents down after breakfast to keep them dry. Crews headed into the field to put the finishing touches on the project while back at camp others helped pack everything up before the rain hit. They hurried and were successful! When the crews in the field returned at lunch, there was the typical scrambling for leftovers by the younger crowd. I’ve had my share of MSC leftovers through the years that’s for sure. Goodbyes were said as everyone’s attention turned toward the Packer game.

All in all, it was another great MSC project. The goals were met and Janesville now has more Ice Age Trail to care for. Hopefully this will just be the start as we try to eliminate the 20-mile road walk heading west from Janesville. We end the year, just west of Janesville as we start the assault on the Montrose area. It’s going to be a doozy!

Janesville MSC Preview

The IATA Mobile Skills Crew descends once again on Janesville and the Devil’s Staircase Segment. This time we will not only be reinforcing the rockwork that was constructed in 2007, but also moving across the road and begin work on brand new trail. The new trail will start knocking down the 20-mile road walk that currently exists from the end of the Devil’s Staircase segment in Janesville to the Sugar River Trail in Albany. Last year when I hiked through here, I thought too highly of my internal GPS and declined to look at the directions, and led myself into a soybean field. The new trail will make it harder for people like me to lose their way.

The Devil’s Staircase segment is unlike any other along the Ice Age Trail. The trail is pinched between the Rock River and sandstone bluffs that try to push you into the water. It’s quite the sight, especially when you realize that you are still in Janesville. The closest you get to repeating these features is at Potawatomi State Park as you leave the terminus and walk along Lake Michigan with a muted ledge holding you in.

No souls will be sold as we do battle with the devil(s staircase) so come and join us in Janesville Sept. 15-18. Sign up here. If you have an itch for writing, let me know because I will only be at the project during the day on Friday. You can write the recap for the project! Otherwise, I'll be forced to wing it from secondhand rumors. If trail building or writing is not your thing, you can always get a good hair cut while in Janesville!