Having been on the Blair Creek and Karkaghne sections of the Ozark Trail over the past couple months with Jenny and Gwenda and doing the usual critique of the trail conditions, as hikers do, it occurred to me that I now have enough time to take on a section of the trail as a "adopter". Kind of a "put your money, where your mouth is" type of thing! 😆A Trail Adopter is someone that will go out on a section of trail periodically and do routine maintenance; clear smaller downed trees, lopping back of brush, weed whacking, trail marker placement, trash pick up. etc. We can't do any major tree removal or extensive tread repair as that require specialized tools and trained people from the Ozark Trail Association. We do however report back our work and can then relay any major work that should be done.
The adoption sections are each about 3 miles in length. I was surprised and pleased that so many of the sections are adopted. Almost every mile of the continuous length of the OT is covered as well as a good amount of the outlier sections as well.
Looking over the list, I did spot a section that I had just hiked that I was interested in. The Blair Creek section has a Fen.
A Fen is defined as: nutrient-rich, groundwater-fed, peat-accumulating wetlands that are constantly saturated, often with alkaline water. They support diverse flora like sedges, grasses, and rare orchids, as well as fauna like insects, birds, and small mammals. Fens are commonly found in glacial landscapes at the base of slopes.
The Fen in Blair Creek is slightly unusual and categorized as a "raised fen" = The fen found here is dome-shaped from the accumulation of peaty materials. A thick deposit of mucky organic soil forms a mound here higher than the surrounding land. Fens are wetlands created when calcareous groundwater seeps out to the soil surface and are typically dominated by herbaceous plants. Fens are kept open by both saturated soils and historically, occasional wildfires. These fens are created by groundwater moving down through the dolomite formation and hitting a resistant layer, likely sandstone, along which the water then runs horizontally and seeps out onto the lower slopes along the valley. The fen itself is dominated by sedges, orange coneflower, and silky willow.
The trail used to go right along side the fen, in fact, if you still look at the maps of the fen on the Missouri Conservation website you will see the trail going directly next to the fen, but the Ozark Trail map set shows it correctly moved to west and higher ground. The trail was moved many years ago, probably to protect the delicate nature of the Fen and the fauna that inhabit it. You can still see it from the current trail, if you know where to look, and the trees are still bare.
That is a long introduction to explain my choice of trail section. I think it will interesting for me to watch the fen and learn more about it on my trips to do trail work and also motivate me to make the 2.5 hour, one way, drive to get to my section. Having taken the section, that left only one three mile section left on the entire Blair Creek portion and that was the 3 miles just North of my section, so of course I had to take it as well. 😳 The section to the North is 3 miles and runs along a gravel road and is the path of an old cog railway that used to move timber from deeper in the forest to the main road for pickup. It is a super easy section to walk but as you will see is subject to lots of trash, being along a logging road that also leads to one of Doe Run's mining operations.
So my first trip out would be March 26-27. Having just hiked this section 2 months ago, I had a fair idea of what I would find and how long it might take me. Not being under any time consideration, I decided to dedicate each section to half a day and see how that went.
Thursday March 26
I drove down in the morning and parked directly in the middle of my two sections. This also works out well, because there is an established trailhead with parking at this spot. Just a field by a kiosk, but as I remarked in my summary of this previous hike, I doesn't appear too many people take advantage of these lovely sections in the middle of the Ozark Trail.
I got to the trailhead around 10:30 am. Got all my gear sorted out. I have a couple of bow saws, loppers, a long limb trimmer and hand held pruning shears. I am not used to carrying this stuff in a backpack. I decided to put the suspension and more supportive waist belt back on my Gossamer Gear Gorilla (50 liters). It is able to support, comfortably, around 40 pounds with the suspension in.
Everything strapped down, off I went around 11:15am. The temperatures today were suppose to be well above normal and there is no water on this 6 mile (3 mile each way) section, so I carried 2 liters. Normally I would cover this 3 miles in an hour, but I decided that I would do trail work on the way out and then trash collection on the way back.
Leaving the truck
I was able to back away my tools on the way back and just have a trash bag out and handy. If I saw trash on the way down, I just tossed in on the trail to make it easier to collect on the way back, but if I could see it from the trail, I picked it up.
BC2b
