Written by Max Skolnick-Schur, Wild Stew Field Crew Leader.
The crew headed up the Circle Seven Trail again in the east side of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness to continue pushing the trail closer to the junction with the Continental Divide Trail/Black Range Crest Trail. While most of the crew start work, we also found and flagged the trail ahead all the way to the top. Most of our work involved cutting open the post-fire vegetation overgrowth, as well as redefining creek crossings, and improving tread in places as needed.
Through the many patches of oak, locust and mountain mahogany, we cut open more of the trail that had been lost to time. This trail is important as it provides an additional eastern access route on the CDT for people to get on and off the trail as well as make it easier for crews and pack stock to get in further to continue maintenance work on the CDT and other adjacent trails.
Besides a little rain and hail, nothing was slowing us down and we made good progress on the trail, ultimately retreading and brushing 1.2 miles of trail, as well as building cairns at all creek crossings and other poorly defined areas, and we cut 9 logs off the trail.
