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Reports from Committees .... Trails Report With several feet of snow still blanketing the upper reaches of RMC's paths, it¹s hard to imagine that another trail crew season is underway. But sure as the strengthening sun is melting away the huge snows of the past winter, RMC's trail crew is heading out on the trails to begin the season¹s work: repairing winter damage, brushing, blazing, cutting blowdowns, cairn building and preventing trail erosion with rock steps, waterbars and ditching. Our main news of the spring happened in the valley. RMC volunteers, working with Bowman Builders, constructed eight tent platforms for the trail crew. The crew, as Mike noted in his introduction, will use the Jones Cottage near Coldbrook Farm as their base of operations, thanks to Dan and Edith Tucker. Several evenings and weekends of volunteer work brought this project to a successful conclusion in time for the crew¹s arrival on June 1. Recent grants and donations from the Reavis Foundation, American Hiking Society, American Alpine Club, Moriah Sports, EMS and International Mountain Climbing School helped the club significantly in this endeavor, but we still need more than $3,000. Every donated dollar will help the club defray this cost and help solve the long-time problem of seasonal trail crew housing. We hope you can help. We are fortunate this year to have the expertise of Sherri Fabre as Field Supervisor. Sherri has worked for four years with RMC - first as Gray Knob caretaker, then on the trail crew for three seasons. She has recently returned from a season at the US base at McMurdo Sound on Antarctica. Our Senior Crew for 2001 includes Jennifer Cleary, Dan Griffiths and returning third year trail crew members Aaron Parcak and Pete Sullivan. Our first year, SCA trail crew includes Dan Schwartz, Thomas Remmers and Jill Grenon. The major project for the Senior Crew this year is erosion control work along a one-mile section of Lowe's Path. The SCA crew will be performing basic trail maintenance on the Hill trails and erosion control work on sections of Sylvan Way, Beechwood Way, Fallsway and Brookbank. As part of the new Randolph Community Forest, RMC is now planning for two new trails, which will form a loop from Randolph to the Pond of Safety and back. We'll need names for the trails. The Board of Directors is soliciting suggestions for trail names, with nominations to be announced this fall or winter. If you have a great idea for a trail name, email your idea to us, along with the rationale for your suggestion, via the RMC web site. We'll share the best ideas with RMC members, later in the year. Camps Report The RMC has two new caretakers for this summer. Stephanie Koetzle (from Sioux Falls, SD) will be at Gray Knob. Roz Stever (from Randolph) will be at Crag Camp. Roz is a second-generation RMC caretaker. Her father, Guy Stever Jr., was a caretaker during the summers of 1966 and 1967. Web Site Report The trail sign auction ended on May 1 with more than $650 in bids. The highest bid was $150 for a sign from The Cornice trail. We now have a new auction on the site in which ten Randolph Valley/Northern Peaks maps are up for bid. The maps are unfolded and numbered. Only 50 of the maps were finished unfolded so they are definitely a collector's item. A new RMC News section has been added to the web site, along with a public message board. Be sure to add it to your bookmarks. Events Report Fourth of July Tea, Wednesday,
July 4, 3-5 p.m., Sky Meadow on Randolph Hill Road |