April 6th Sipsey Willderness Clean-up

“torture??..*grins*...who told you about the handcuffs and whips?”

“Pack Rat may be comming also. He'll know more as it gets closer.”

“Cool WD. The more the merrier.

Hey OPIE! Did you call Ranger Gaines today?”

“What is the current status of the "negotiations" with the FS?”

“Ok i never heard back from Mike Cook..he asked for my fax, e-mail, and #'s NOTHING..I called back and left a msg for him. Nothing. Ranger Gaines is either in a meeting, or away when i call. I am still trying guys.”

“we are goin peddlin on the river and sleepin in the woods. Then we are gonna werk on our trale then we wont have no dollers to go to The Abalama Wild Woods. I am sawry...”

“Well don't worry about it too much OPIE. We can always do what we want to.

Cook sounds like the stereotypical Govt. bureaucrat. Eager to try to foist his view of the world on others, and refuses to do his job when people don't play his way.

Of course, I've never met the man, so I could be wrong. For all I know, he's out there in the Bankhead somewhere picking up trash and saving small animals. I just doubt it.

Ranger Gaines is probably busier than a one-legged man in an @sskicking contest.”

“I think bitpusher has hit the nail on the head. The best we can do is offer to let them know of our plans. If they are interested in attempting to coordinating with us, then you should hear something.

If not, then let's just get the job done. This might be one of those times where the maxim of "Forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission" applies.”

“I am also of the opinion that it is probably going to be a case where we will go out and do some trail maintenance without any "help" from FS. At this time I am thinking this is going to be and ECT with a little trail maintenance thrown in - so I am just mellowing out and getting into the idea of a nice relaxing hike where I will be carrying a little extra weight and if a blow down gets in my way well too bad - I'll cut it if its a trail blocker otherwise ... piffle”

“I'm gonna bring my 30" bow saw, a small folding shovel and some trash bags. I have another smaller bow saw, and lots of little hand pruners. Do I need to bring them too, for someone else? Do the hand pruners make any sense at all?

I bought a new blade for my 30" bow saw, plus some bright neon orange rustoleum paint to repaint it with. Wanna make sure it gets seen if I drop it, ya know. The blade was about $4, the paint was about $4. On the way out, I found the new 30" bow saws. $6.96. Damn near made me sick.

I'll be the one with ORANGE bow saw.”

“I am bringing trashbags and a bowsaw as well.

BP, isn't that how it always goes,,,,,$8 in repair for a $7 item?”

“I plan on bringing my usual assortment of tools but I may leave some of them in the trunk. Anyways I will definately pack in my 21 inch Corona pruning saw, a 5 foot crosscut saw, both handles for the crosscut saw (normally I just pack one of the handles), a wedge, a 2 pound hammer, and gloves. Equipment left in the car will probably include the come-along, a couple lengths of rope, crowbar, and hydraulic jack. Generally I use a 2 blue dots plus a blue stripe to mark my tools but some of them may have had the marks partially worn off.”

“Ya'll let me know if a certain tool is needed (dirt rake, hoe (hehe i could let chelle use it). Or if ya'll have an xtra tool that just needs a set of hands that would be better for us to use. The only tool i have is a big johnson...but you know how the FS is with POWER tools...hehe”

“hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

sure bring BOB along - probably a lot of sore muscles could use a little massage or the electric sort (grin)”

“Yah but how does 'chelle feel about them?”

“i'm confused...HOI lost me...and what is michelle feeling??..oh the humanity!”

“How does she feel about power tools? Like, you know, your... oh never mind....”

“big johnson ... power tool == a Battery Operated Boyfriend (a vibrator)”

“You guys are just too twisted for words!!!

LOL”

“Yep twisted. That's us. Alabama will do that to you. Wait'll you see my saw.

I don't know what HOI's excuse is.

LOL”

“I'm bringing a bow saw, pruning shears, & trash bags.
Pack Rat is planning on comming too. We'll be there that Friday night. If it's too late, we'll camp in the parking lot at Thompsn Creek.
Have we got a plan on when we're all hooking up yet?”

“No real plan yet WD. I think right now the idea is to clean up the west end of the River trail (209). Perhaps we should go ahead and come up with some plan for how far to go up the trail, which campsites or fire rings we need to clean, etc. Because we haven't gotten anything from the FS yet. Not that OPIE hasn't tried.”

“Bitpusher I can't wait to SEE your SAW!!”

“note to self: quickly move away when others start licking their lips while looking at trail tools”

“Since we are planning to work on the river trail, carrying trash out by canoe may be a great idea. I think there are some mini dumpsters at the recreational area trailhead, however we still need to get the trash to it. Most of the trash from fire rings will be heavy and a pain to carry. Any suggestions?”

“/clueless bubba camper mode ON

We could build a really big fire and throw it all in there. That works, right?

/clueless bubba camper mode OFF

Canoeing the trash out has been suggested, but no one has produced a canoe yet. Anybody got one?

Also, does anyone know if you're required to have a boating qualification on your driver license to paddle a canoe in Alabama? I'm thinking surely not, but then I think, well, it is Alabama after all.”

“good question bitpusher. I can check on this, but memory tells me that you only have to have a license for a motorized vessel.”

“I hope that's the case. I'm thinking about getting the boat license anyway. It'll make it easier for me to threaten my wife with a boat purchase if she ever starts to complain about how much my camping gear costs.”

“Greg Tucker
License Commissioner
Limestone County Court House | Athens, Alabama 35611
(205) 233-6430


BOAT OPERATORS LICENSE


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who Must Be Certified?

All persons 12 years of age and older who operates a motorized vessel on Alabama waters. Certification must be obtained before April 28, 1999.

I pulled this on a quick search of Alabama Law. Gear Slut may be in better position to determine if this has been amended.”

“I wonder if a rental place would be willing to let us borrow a canoe for a day if they knew what project we were working on? I know that Wild Al Indian Trading Post store near Sipsey has a few canoes.”

“Yeah I have a boat my vessel license. The test to get the license sucks. The test is so tricky to weed out most people under the age of 18. However, the test sure has cut down on the annoying 10 to 12yr old waverunner gangs. Trying to fish or sleep in late with waverunners buzzing around is impossible.”

“Who's gonna portage this canoe and the bags of trash past the boulder blockage and all the way to the rec and find a way back in country?(just thinking out loud)we could fill the bags half with air and hope they make it to the rec area..lol..up near were thompson creek feeds in to down a mile or so it's not real navigatable.

My thinking (need to grab the map to be sure) is we can base outta the needle and work down towards bee branch...i can think of 5 small campsites and 3 large ones off the top of my head in that area.

Since many are showing up Friday night, you can either TH camp, camp under the TC bridge (like a buncha trolls) or work in to the first few campsites...and the saturday stragglers meet you in...who else is coming in saturday besides me and chelle?(we may be the odd ones out)”

“Opie I don't know of a boulder blockage. Not saying there's not one, the trail leaves the river's edge in several places. Are you talking about the narrow passage through the rapids? Packing it out may be the best we can do. But if we can canoe it I'll be glad to pick it up and drop it off. Of course, I'll need help getting it back to my truck at the opposite trailhead. Because I'm going to be out of town and away from the family so much in April I'll be coming in early Sat and leaving late Sat. The canoe idea actually may be more trouble than it’s worth.”

“It (the canoe idea) would require someone to hike back to the TC trailhead and go fetch the canoe and canoers. If we thought we might have several trips worth of garbage it would be worth it, but I don't know if we're gonna have that much. It might be easier to set up teams of people to hike back to the TC trailhead carrying the garbage (in bags) in their packs, and depositing them in a waiting truck for disposal Sunday. I'll have my truck there, so it can be used for that purpose.

I'll be there Friday in the afternoon, and I'll be hiking in to the first large, empty campsite I find. I'll try not to go too far in so if people wanna night hike in a little it won't be too far. But if there's a good campsite at the trailhead, I might just set up there.”

“There will actually be little non-organic materials in the fire rings - foil, tuna can, etc. These materials will need to be packed out, but the ashes can be transported to, and distributed amongst nearby foliage. A five gallon bucket or heavy duty (fiberglass reinforced croaker sack) bag can be used for transporting the ashes...

I don't think a canoe will actually be neccessary - there should be plenty of space for trash if equally distributed among packs on the last day.

The Friendly Ranger can pack out all the trash she collects on a five day solo trip...

Speaking of Wilderness...
From what I understand, anything that's been there in excess of fifty years is considered part of the "landscape", and shouldn't be disturbed.”

“I was wondering why someone said we would have to pack out the ashes, gojo. If they're cold ashes, it should be okay to scatter them on the forest floor. Metal and unburned plastic was what I was thinking of packing out.

I guess the 50-year rule means we can't pack out any old stills we find there, right? lol”

“I wouldn't think that there would be too much to carry out. If we scatter ashes and sack up the remaining metal, plastic, etc., it shouldn't consist of much unless the trail is a real #&%!$ pit (which I do not perceive that it is).

If it is like most other trails, most of the trash will be within the first few hundred yards of the trailhead.”

“No doubt the worst of it is. But last spring, my brother and I dug a bunch of tin cans out of a fire ring that it would take no less than two hours to hike to from any trailhead in the park. So we'll have plenty of work cleaning out old fire rings and picking garbage around backcountry campsites.”

“O by the way put me on the for sure to make it list. The canoe idea may not work well. Thompson creek needs a lot of water to use a canoe. I was there last week and it would have worked fine. We have also had a lot of rain lately, If this continues there will be plenty of water. The sipsey level drops fast so we will have to wait and see. Low water would be a lot more trouble for the canoe than carrying the trash back out. I plan on going to the trail head a couple of days before we go to check on the road. I will also report on the water level then also. A note on stuff found in the fire rings. I once found over a hundred empty CO2 cartridiges in a fire ring, near fall creek falls. I don't know how many people packed them in, but it was all I could do to pack them back out.


BAMA”

“Obviously some folks don't mind carrying dead weight near as much as I do when they carried that junk in. If it piles up too much, we can rig a litter (army field stretcher) that would allow us to pack more out. Not sure how effective it would be on this trail, but thought I would throw out a suggestion.”

“We could rig a long branch between two hikers and suspend the full garbage bags from them, like hunters carrying out large game.

Lookee here whut Ah bagged!”

“LOL. Of course if we just happen to step out at the trail head at the time the county Sheriff goes by, I can see us all submitting to a search.

"What you boys got in them bags?"”

“*snickers*.."you sure got a purty mouth boi".."Bring out the gimp"..."but the gimps sleepin"..."then ya bettah go wake him up" (((wow..i just combined deliverence and pulp fiction...what a warped mind)))

I will try to contact Gaines again tommorrow”

“What kinda trash do y'all anticipate encountering?
Did I unwittingly walk past a landfill when I was there Thanksgiving?

Don't sweat the trash -
we'll get it out with no problem...”

“Hmm government agency...i didn't know they close at 4pm...heh..could i get anyone at 3:45?..i'll let you guess”

“I'm planning to bring my big pack (5200 ci). I'll be using ultralight gear so I'll have lots of extra space to haul out trash. I'm going to use trash bags and then put them in nylon bags so I don't fock up my pack.”

“How many would we need? I have a bunch I can bring.”

“Tango...if you can still get them chelle would like a pair of gloves...mens small would be ok..”

“I have:

8 Small
6 Medium
14 Large
6 xtra Large

pairs of gloves. These are all mens sizes. I think this will be enough.”

“I have confirmed that I will be leaving Memphis at noon on Friday the 5th. Should be there mid to late afternoon.”