December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

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December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

Postby Pippin » Nov 29, 2011 9:29 pm

The first of several planned work days to clear trails at the SCCi's Fox Mountain Preserve is scheduled for Saturday, December 17th, beginning at 9 AM EST. This work day will focus on clearing the trail up to Rusty's Cave, which received a direct hit from a tornado that came through the area in April 2011.

The staging area will be at the new SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve parking area. For directions, see: http://scci.org/News/FoxMountainAccess.html. On-site parking will be extremely limited; please carpool if possible. All volunteers will need to complete a liability release form when they arrive; forms will be available at the volunteer registration table in the parking area.

Please bring trail-clearing hand tools, including loppers, bow saws, pruners, pole saws, pole pruners, and clippers. Work gloves and safety glasses are strongly encouraged.

Please do not bring chainsaws for this work day. We currently have enough volunteers for chainsaw work. Our greatest need will be to clear smaller debris all the way up to Rusty's. We'd like to have a nice, wide trail by the end of the day.

Please share this announcement with your Grotto remailers. Thanks!
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Re: December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

Postby Jeff Bartlett » Nov 29, 2011 11:01 pm

Just chiming in here to say that this mountain was INCREDIBLY hard-hit by the tornado and the property managers can use all the help they can get. Since Georgia DNR won't allow clearing trails with nuclear weapons -- which would probably be the most effective approach here -- chainsaws and manpower are going to have to get it done.

As an example of the damage caused in this area, those of you familiar with Moses Tomb (and the camping area near the bus below it) and/or Andy Zellner will be astonished to hear it took Andy, by his own account, TWO HOURS to find the pit and attempt to flag a trail through the epic deadfall.
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Re: December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

Postby graveleye » Nov 30, 2011 4:26 pm

don't bring chainsaws??
What fun is that? I was all looking forward to bringing mine!!!
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Re: December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

Postby Patrick Wilson » Dec 5, 2011 9:43 pm

Jeff Bartlett wrote:Just chiming in here to say that this mountain was INCREDIBLY hard-hit by the tornado and the property managers can use all the help they can get. Since Georgia DNR won't allow clearing trails with nuclear weapons -- which would probably be the most effective approach here -- chainsaws and manpower are going to have to get it done.

As an example of the damage caused in this area, those of you familiar with Moses Tomb (and the camping area near the bus below it) and/or Andy Zellner will be astonished to hear it took Andy, by his own account, TWO HOURS to find the pit and attempt to flag a trail through the epic deadfall.


I can certainly vouch for this. Some friends and I made an effort to take a trip to Rusty's back in July, and it completely didn't register with me that Fox Mountain might have been hit in April. It is BAD. Very bad. If I hadn't been to cave so many times before, there is no conceivable way we would have found the entrance. It is completely unrecognizable. The first part of the trail up the mountain isn't so bad, but once you start nearing the cave, you can tell something terrible happened here.

I'll try my very best to keep my schedule clear that day and do what I can to help.



By the way, here's an idea of what it looks like up there. The Rusty's entrance is somewhere in this picture.

Image
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Re: December 17th Work Day at the SCCi Fox Mountain Preserve

Postby mabercrombie » Dec 8, 2011 10:20 am

Fox Mountain Trails Maintenance day December 17, 2011



On Saturday December 17th we will be having another clean up day on Fox mtn. A previous clean up earlier this month has cleared the main trail to Rustys cave. The goal of this clean up will be focused on repairing damage to the trail from heavy equipment used during the last clean up. Work additionally needs to be done on the trail to Cemetery pit to clean some smaller trees that have fallen across the trail as well as marking a portion of the repaired trail to Rusty's.

We will be meeting at 9:00 Eastern in the New Parking area for the Fox Mtn preserve. Additional parking is available at the Rising Fawn Church of Christ North of Sues Market on hwy 11. A shuttle to the new trail head will be provided if needed. The SCCi board has requested that Chainsaws be left at home for this clean up due to liability concerns. We will need shovels, rakes, bow saws and other hand tools. Pizza will be provided but drinks will not.

The Chattanooga Grotto's Christmas party will be held later that evening at Marty Abercrombies house near Trenton Ga.
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