Greetings Appies, As I write this in mid-November, the weather is starting to get cold and it starting to feel like winter is approaching. I am not a huge fan of the cold but have found that I enjoy it more when I get out and play in it. We have a full sched- ule of hikes from easy snowshoes walks to mountain hikes and ski trips plans for this winter. If you haven’t been out before come try it out. As I think about the approaching winter I am also taking this oppor- tunity to look back on the past year and as I complete the first year of my term as Chapter Chair I look back with pride on everything we have accomplished. If you attend- ing our Annual Meeting on Nov 15th you would have heard Andy Falender talk about how we have inspired other Chapters when we took the lead and donated funds to build a shelter in the Maine Woods. Since then 3 other chapters have either contributed funds or sweat. Some of our other accomplish- ments for 2008 were: We ran our first official Chapter Youth Program Activities with Big Brother Big Sister. We kicked off our new graduated hiking series with our 3-Season Program this spring and fall and our winter program starting in November. We expanded our paddling pro- gram offering more trips to new locations. Through our endowment we sent students from Clinton and Ayer to A Mountain Classroom in the White Mountains. Chapter Chairs Message Get Out And Play! (Under The Red Felt Crusher) Sharon Foster, Chapter Chair DECEMBER WINTER ISSUE amcworcester.org 1 Electronic Newsletter pg 2 Breakneck Hill pg 3 Doctor on the Trail pg 4&5 Chapter annual meeting pg 6&7 Executive Committee pg 8
Transcript
Greetings Appies,
As I write this in mid-November, the weather is starting to get cold and it starting to feel like winter is approaching. I am not a huge fan of the cold but have found that I enjoy it more when I get out and play in it. We have a full sched-ule of hikes from easy snowshoes walks to mountain hikes and ski trips plans for this winter. If you haven’t been out before come try it out.
As I think about the approaching winter I am also taking this oppor-tunity to look back on the past year and as I complete the first year of my term as Chapter Chair I look back with pride on everything we have accomplished. If you attend-ing our Annual Meeting on Nov 15th you would have heard Andy Falender talk about how we have inspired other Chapters when we took the lead and donated funds to build a shelter in the Maine Woods. Since then 3 other chapters have
either contributed funds or sweat. Some of our other accomplish-ments for 2008 were:
We ran our first official Chapter Youth Program Activities with Big Brother Big Sister.We kicked off our new graduated hiking series with our 3-Season Program this spring and fall and our winter program starting in November.We expanded our paddling pro-gram offering more trips to new locations.Through our endowment we sent students from Clinton and Ayer to A Mountain Classroom in the White Mountains.
Chapter Chairs Message Get Out And Play! (Under The Red Felt Crusher)
Sharon Foster, Chapter Chair
DeCember WinTer iSSue
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Electronic Newsletter pg 2 Breakneck Hill pg 3Doctor on the Trail pg 4&5
These are just a sampling of the chapter’s accomplishments through-out the year. None of which would be possible without our dedicated volunteers and leaders
I would also like to acknowledge our “retiring” executive committee members; Jim Walsh, Mary Coz, Tom Zumwalt, Scott Karpuk and Claude Guerlian for their contribu-tions to the committee and wel-come our new executive committee members; Charlie Arsenault, Gary Fitzgerald and Bob DesRosiers.
The Annual Meeting is also when
we present our “Appie of the Year” Award. This years winner was Pat Lambert. Pat re-joined the executive committee this year as hiking chair and in just one year she has made a tremendous impact energizing our leader base, bringing in new lead-ers and expanding our hiking offer-ings. She implemented our hiking rating system to allow you to better compare hikes and pick the one that is best for you, and initiated our new graduating hiking series. Pat has also served as social chair and is a hiking and bicycling leader.
We had 120 people join us for our annual meeting at the Manor in W.
Boylston, all seemed to have a great time. Check out our website and in this issue for pictures from the event.
In closing, I would again like to thank the Executive Committee, and all our leaders and volunteers for the contributions over the past year. We really couldn’t do it without them!
See you out there!Sharon FosterWorcester Chapter Chair
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October 28, 2008 - Coordinated by Southborough Resident Barbara Dyer, AMC volunteers spent Sunday morning planting wildflowers at the Breakneck Hill Orchard Conservation Land. All of the Wildflowers are native and come from the New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods, Framingham. In addition to the AMC volunteers, many others have been volunteering their time over the last month to put in the hundreds of plants.
The Wildflowers were purchased by combination of a grant from AMC and Southborough Community Preservation funds. The New England Wildflower Society also donated an additional truckload of plants.
The project is a component of the larger restoration of the old orchard, which had been engulfed with the invasive plant Oriental Bittersweet. The Bittersweet had covered and killed most of the apple trees in the orchard. Under the guidance of the Southborough Stewardship Committee, acres of the conservation land were cleared and are now being managed as Grassland Bird Habitat.
The Wildflower planting on the 1-acre hillside next to the parking area will create habitat for butterflies and other pollinators.
Volunteers holding empty plant containers at Breakneck Hill conservation land in Southboro, plants were provided
by the Worcester Chapter Endowment Funds.
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“is There a Doctor on the Trail?”by Scott Karpuk
The birds started to sing. I checked my watch; it was 4:30 in the morning. I looked over at my sleeping 12-year-old son, Michael, searched for the tent zipper and stepped out. We were sleeping on the three-story-high observation tower on Bromley Mountain (3,260 ft) in southern Vermont. Two Appalachian Trail (AT) thru-hikers shared our perch. “Crumbs” and “For-2-Day” (their trail names) were two twenty-or-so females that had left Georgia the second week of March and were hoping to achieve Katahdin by mid August. This morning they would continue their trek north, while we were leaving the trail, having spent nine days section-hiking the Long Trail (LT), which is also the AT in this part of Vermont.
I looked out, dawn waiting, the sky still full of stars, and I reflected on the time my son and I spent on the trail. It was both satisfying and challenging. But above all, well spent.
In late June, we set out from Williamstown, MA on the border of Vermont, near where the Long Trail begins. Our friend Kevin dropped us off at the trailhead for Pine Cobble Mountain. We entered the Appalachian Trail two hours later and then it merged into the venerable Long Trail as we crossed into Vermont.
We spent our first night in the Seth Warner Shelter. The capacity crowd included LT and AT section-hikers and thru-hikers. It was a rustic three-sided structure with a running brook nearby and an outhouse. This was to be our last day without rain for the next three days.
As soon as we broke camp the rains came, turning the trail into a mud path that eventually became a mud slick. One memorable stretch skirted Sucker Pond in the Green Mountain National Forest. An enormous beaver dam held back most of the pond, but the volume of rain put the bog bridges under 4 to 6 inches of water.
We continued our slog north, following the white blazes.
Two days later we headed up Glastenbury Mountain (3,748 ft) to spend the night at Goddard Shelter. Goddard is the remotest shelter on the trail; it is ten miles in either direction from any road.
By this time we had become friendly with other hikers that were keeping a similar pace. One group of hikers from a Christian Summer camp in Pennsylvania had two college-aged leaders and seven high-school students. They arrived at the shelter around 7 PM. One of the youngsters complained of severe stomach pains that wouldn’t subside. The leaders were quite concerned about her condition.
Another older hiker and I spoke with the two leaders at length about their options and the concomitant risks. They decided to hike out at night and try to get their hurting hiker to a hospital. We gave them a headlamp and use of the only cell phone that worked so they could contact campers’ parents.
After their long trek up to Goddard, I was very uncomfortable with their decision to walk out 10 miles at night. To my relief, they left us a message at a hut five miles away that they’d arrived there by early morning and rested until daybreak before continuing towards the road. They followed up with a phone call later to reassure me that the sick girl was checked into a hospital and was okay.
This incident brought into sharp resolution how hiking is not only about pleasant options. Which trail? How far? It’s also about weighing very tough decisions about safety – yours and those around you. How involved do you get? How much responsibility do you take? When do you put your foot down, and when do you let others make their own decisions?
Little did I know that the very next day we would be involved in another, more serious medical emergency!
We were spending the night at Story Spring Shelter. Larry, a third-grade schoolteacher, woke up at 6AM, explaining that he needed help to get to a hospital. Having slept next to him, I knew he had a restless night. The previous evening he already told me he didn’t feel well. He had a reaction to something
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and was losing body temperature.The rescue squad arrived with a box ambulance, a rescue fire truck and three ATVs, one of which was equipped for trail rescue, with a triangular stretcher mounted on a single wheel.
We continued holding the tarp for about 10 minutes while the EMTs took vitals and loaded Larry into the ambulance and took off for Rutland Hospital.
With confused hearts we continued our hike. Thankfully, we had no further emergencies on the trail. This drama-filled trip was memorable for both my son and me. The sights along our 60-mile section hike were beautiful, and we came away with a sense of having done something really special and worthwhile together.
because his lip had swollen to two or three times its normal size. By morning it was evident that there was something seriously wrong.
We were eight at the shelter that night and everyone pitched in. There was a younger couple, three teens and my son. Folks often looked to me, the oldest, to make decisions.
Larry barely made the three miles out to the Stratton-Arlington Road, a 19-mile dirt road south of Stratton Mountain.
For the next hour, while it poured rain with thunder and lightening, we held a tarp over Larry to keep him warm and dry, and waited for the Arlington rescue squad. It turned out Larry had an abdominal hernia
editor, Barbara Dyer. All newsletter submissions should be sent to [email protected]. We reserve the right to edit for length and content. All contributions are welcome. Spring deadline Mar. 1.newsletter Design, Bob Desrosiers. Graphic designer/photographer. Questions/comments about design ser-vices or the newsletter to [email protected].
