We got rained out yesterday and that was great.  Today, well rested and sharpened, Lindsay and I started cutting Buckthorn at the Eastern junction of the Lost Trail (first described here, with more details here).  It took a few minutes to locate the route that DNR Trail Boss Don Dane flagged for us back in August.

I began clearing the trail junction while Lindsay worked reopening the trail.  Here are a few before and after shots of the trail junction.  This is the view into the Lost Trail.

The view West along the loop trail leading to the parking lot.

The view East on the loop trail heading towards the Old Hotel and Saw Mill.

The view North towards the cranberry bog.

And after…

By the time I finished this, Lindsay had progressed way down the trail.  I joined him and we continued on to within less than 100 yards of the Marl Pits.  We are planning to finish opening up this cutoff trail on Wednesday the 19th.  You can see how far we got marked in White below.  There is still a lot of brush to cut between the trail and the river so we’ll be working in this area for a while.

Here is a video tour of the Lost Trail.  Note, at the beginning of the cutoff trail that we did not attempt to cut all the little Prickly Ash with our chain saws.  I’ll get this on Wednesday with a brush cutter and then we’ll hit them with a foliar spray in the Spring when the re-sprout.

I forgot to mention in the last post that we saw 5-6 good sized Brook Trout lingering at a little bend in the river by signpost #10.  This is one of their favorite spots to hang out but we haven’t seen them there for a while.  The sunlight was perfect and we got a real good look.  I also saw one later in the Emerald Spring.