Day Seven

Today was the start to my final full week of Senior Project. I had a hard time waking up this morning and felt pretty tired today after working on the trail all day yesterday. Although I was tired I was able to finish the trail up until the last rocky pitch. This is about three quarters or more of the way to Balancing Rock. Once up this section, which happens to be the hardest, the trail travels along rock slabs. There is not really any work to be done on these as there are no trees in the way or anything on the ground. In other-words this section is easy to build. I will most likely make several cairns to guide hikers in the right direction.

I did try marking some of the trees for the blazes and found that the paint I chose to use does not show. It is water based and absorbs quickly. I found it surprising that paint is the most ecologically friendly way to blaze a trail. I would have used something else, but after my research paint seemed to be the way to go. I got some different paint to try which is much thicker and should not get wicked in and absorbed by the bark.

I am planning to get a lot of sleep tonight and try to finish the trail by wednesday. Once the path is completed I can go through and trim back any branches that I might have missed and blaze the trail with the new paint. I also talked to Greg and will be making signs this week in wood-shop. I plan to have one on either end of the trail and maybe three of four along the trail. I have talked to a couple of people that have hiked the trail recently. They mostly have good things to say although I have heard that one section might be a little slippery especially when wet. I am thinking of rerouting this but I am not quite sure what I am going to do yet. I am planning to hike up with a few of my friends some time at the end of the week. I will see what they think and use their feedback to make final alterations.