The NorthWoods Conservation Corps Pro Crew, whose season extends through the autumn, has been hard at work in the Whites for the past three weeks, restoring the Old Bridle Path on Mt. Lafayette in partnership with the Appalachian Mountain Club and the US Forest Service. This is a multiyear effort to bring the Old Bridle Path up to sustainable trail standards as part of a collaborative effort to restore the Franconia Loop Ridge Trails — one of the most popular loops in the White Mountain National Forest which sees thousands of visitors annually.The Pro Crew worked on an upper section of the Old Bridle Path—quarrying stone, making crush fill, and constructing stone staircases to lessen the steepness of trail grades and mitigate eroded sections of trails. This exciting historic project requires many technical trail skills such as shaping and splitting rocks using hammer drills, and feathers and wedges. All the crews at different worksites followed stringent sustainable trail construction standards in order to create consistent work but, more importantly, to provide a result that will last for a hundred years while protecting the trail and the surrounding forest ecology.
Check out the video below, created by the National Forest Foundation, spotlighting the collaboration between NorthWoods, the Appalachian Mountain Club, and the U.S. Forest Service to carefully restore these popular and historic trails.
