Trail maintance on Witt-Corn?

[mudhook]

While dawldling up and down Wittenberg/Cornell this afternoon, RS and I noticed the trail from the 3500' sign to part way down the bruins causeway has been considerbly widened to the point its really really really wide; Trees cut off about 4' off the ground, lots and lots of branches, and so on. I won't say alot of the charm of the trail is gone, but it is. Any one else notice this recently?
Other than that, it was a beautiful day, and we only got lost twice and finished in the dark.

[Mark Schaefer]

Woodstrider from VFTT (and also here) is the trail maintainer of the Wittenberg Cornell Slide Trail. You might want to send her a PM to see if it was her maintenance. She is fairly old school and a believer in low impact hiking. It may have been the ADK trail crews who perhaps were working to some new standards. There are new standards concerning gradients and switchbacks for trail construction. Perhaps there has been some maintenance changes to trail width as well. The trails do become narrow in winter from the weight of snow on the conifer branches, but winter hiking is not suppose to be overly easy either.

Last August I noticed a lot of small branch cuttings along the Devil's Path on Plateau. I don't think the trail was much wider than before, however, my first reaction was that the cuttings were overkill and even a bit unsightly. Most of the small spruce branches were left right along the side of the trail and some were left in the trail. There were also a number of small trees cut off a few feet above the ground. This was just a week after the Couchsachraga herd path axe cuttings in the Adirondacks. Fearing that the Devil's Path cuttings might encourage others to do free lance trail work, I made an effort to move all of the cuttings out of sight from the trail. I did not have the tools to remove the cut-off small trees. Those cuttings may have been the work of the ADK trail crew as there were also many new water diversion channels along the ascent from Mink Hollow which were much needed.

[MattC]

I noticed this as well when I was up on Wittenberg about a month or so ago. I had forgotten about, so I'm glad Mudhook noticed and reported it. It definitely seemed like excessive cutting to me. I believe a small view was actually opened up, which is sort of redudant, being that this is pretty close to the summit of Wittenberg. :rolleyes:

Matt