Are you a fan of the Bristol Trail Network and looking for a way to get involved? We have a short work day planned this weekend on Sunday October 24 starting at 1:00 pm.
We are planning an end-of-season litter pick up on the River Bend Trail. As those of you who frequent that section know, that trail offers us more (old) litter every year, as the gravel shifts.*
Sunday, October 24 we will meet at the Coffin Factory trailhead at the bottom of South Street for litter pick up starting at 1:00pm (please walk, bike, or park up by the town green, as there is limited parking there). Intern Pete will be leading the crew. We'll have 5-gallon pails for everyone to use – pails are better than trash bags because most of that old trash is broken glass and rusty metal. It rips the bags and dangerously bangs against your legs. So we provide the pails. Come prepared with your own pair of sturdy gloves.
It is very useful for us to know who is coming, so please email to me to sign up. If you give me your phone number, too, we will have a way to contact you in case of (really) bad weather. We'll still go if it is a light drizzle, but if it is storming we'll take the "rain check."
*Why is there so much trash on that section? I get asked this a lot, and it is a good conversation. Most of the trash we see there is nowhere near new. Most of it is 50+ years old. Remember the common practice in VT used to be to burn rubbish in a barrel in the back yard, and then dump what didn't burn – which was mostly glass and metal. So that's what happened. Decades of old glass and metal dumped over the bank by the residents who lived there, who weren't doing anything wrong at the time, though we know better now. Every year we pick up dozens of bags full of it. But because the soils there are loose and gravelly, the hillside keeps offering up more and it works its way down the bank onto the trail. So wear good footwear and gloves – if you can reach it from the trail (with your feet ON the trail) then it is litter, please pick it up. But always keep your feet on the trail. The loose gravelly soils don't hold up to feet climbing the hillside, and you'll not only cause more erosion but possibly slip and cut yourself when you put your hand down (on the glass and metal-strewn hillside) to brace yourself! We just wait. It will eventually come to the trail and we can pick it up then!
The good news is that we very rarely see new litter on that or any other section of the Bristol Trail Network! Kudos to our present-day trail users! And big thanks to those of you (you know who you are ♥) who walk your favorite sections often and routinely pick up what little bit of litter you do occasionally see! You are awesome!
If you'd like to be added to our Bristol Trail Network email list for updates on the trail, please send me your email address. Happy Hiking!
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