White Chuck Bench — Thursday, Jun. 27, 2013

North Cascades > Mountain Loop Highway

Rock On! That seemed to be the theme of the work party today. We worked on a reroute of the trail about 2 miles in. It will switchback up the hill and away from a washed out, difficult to maintain section. We needed to dig down to the mineral soil, for a good solid, non muddy trail. To get to the bottom layer, we first had to dig thru rocks, roots and more rocks. Then we did the rock brigade, handing rocks down the line to fill another area that actually needed rocks for a solid trail. We used a rock sling (at least some strong workers did) to move the big ones. Once we set the rocks in place, we covered them with soil, but we didn't finish. We got wet and muddy, fun times! There is still a lot of work to do, but it will be nice when it's done. If you choose to hike this trail, the blowdowns have been cleared, just don't try to follow the work site trail, it's nowhere near done.