"I love this stuff!" John Newman exclaims. At the moment he is standing in four inches of snow and has just had a small branch bounce off his hardhat as he uses a chainsaw to clear storm damage from the Appalachian Trail. It is a less than ideal day to work on the trail, but John couldn't be happier. He and I had come to the A.T., along with my wife Victoria and our daughter Griffin, to lead an Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association worktrip. The worktrip was canceled due to a rare May snowstorm, but we didn't want to return empty handed, so to speak.

We walked down the trail to survey the storm damage and found that there were several sections of rhododendron that had been crushed under the weight of the wet snow. Even after we shook the snow off the branches, the plants hung in the trail. Instead of waiting for the snow to melt, we jumped right to work and cleared a mile of trail on Albert Mountain and a tricky blowdown we found on Wayah Bald.

"People don't understand how much fun it is," John added, referring to trail maintenance. "They think working on the trail will make you feel good about yourself, but they just don't realize how darn much fun it is."

John should know. He is an individual section maintainer on the Appalachian Trail for both the Nantahala Hiking Club and the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club. He maintains a section of trail for each club and has spent hundreds of hours working on trail maintenance. Why? Because he loves it. I think this may be hiking's biggest secret--trail maintainers have fun while they work.

Trail maintenance is hard work. But, it gives you a chance to commune with nature while working on something bigger than yourself. By cutting and clearing on at least one of the many trails you hike, you get a deeper appreciation for every trail. Thousands of hours of hard work are needed every year to keep trails open. Nature is constantly working to regain the footpath. Trees blow down in storms, briars and other underbrush grow into the trail while erosion removes the soil, leaving behind bare rocks. Trail maintainers must steadily work to keep the footpath in good hiking condition.

Before I began maintaining trails, I hiked a few thousand miles on a number of trails. During that time I developed my own theories about how trails should be kept up. I felt that a trail couldn't be designed on a drafting table with theoretical size and shape--such as a 4 foot wide by 8 foot tall clearance. The trail had to be designed on the ground on a case-by-case basis. Tunnels of rhododendron or mountain laurel could be shaped close to the footpath in one area, while a view could be cut in another area. Wildflowers would come in close to the footpath, while briars would be cut within 8 feet of either side of the trail. I had a lot of ideas, and thought they were all original. I was surprised to find almost all of my opinions about trail maintenance (and quite a few things that had never occurred to me) were already written in the Appalachian Trail Conference's book "Trail Design, Construction, and Maintenance." The trick was just to get out there and do the work.

When I began working as a trail maintainer, I found a lot of other maintainers with experience. People like Jack and Kay Coriell and Bill and Laurie Foot, who had developed their views on trail maintenance through hours and hours of work as well as training sessions. By talking with them and working with them, I began to see the great amount of thought and care that goes into keeping the trail ready for hikers. Much more than I would have ever dreamed.

I had viewed trail maintenance as a necessary evil. It's lousy work, but someone has to do it, summed up my view before I got involved. I was pleasantly surprised when I began to look forward to trail maintenance trips. They weren't bad tasting medicine that had to choked down for the good of the trail. They were the spoonful of sugar.

All hikers owe it to themselves to get out and work on trails. It won't just broaden your appreciation for the places you hike, it may add to the ways you enjoy trails.

Aldo Leopold, the great conservationist, once wrote, "I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is what a man thinks about while chopping or about to chop."

If you have something you would like to see done to a trail you hike on--a bridge built, or even briars cut back--contact the group responsible for the trail's maintenance. They will not only value your input, but they will appreciate the advice all the more when you show up on a worktrip to correct the problem.

I think that the important opinions about trail maintenance are not written with a pen, but with the pulaski, saw, and lopping shears. And that is as it should be.

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