Clearing windfall and a establishing a new trail has kept the committee busy this paste fall.  Read the GTC article from the Fall/Winter edition of the Gazette.

I hope you all had a great summer an that you all are keeping healthy and that you had an opportunity to enjoy the trails. It was a challenge keeping the trails free from windfall. It seemed that the volunteers just finished clearing the trails and the next day we would get a storm and we would have trees on the trails. The volunteers spent an excess of 100 hours maintaining trails. This included grass cutting, windfall clearing, and completing a new trail. The total cost to date to cover expenses for volunteers for gas, oil, chainsaw maintenance, etc. is $300.

A new trail is located north of the store as you drive to the Marina. It is the first trail on the west side of the road. This trail is adjacent to three ponds. It’s a beautiful trail as you can see beavers and all kinds of waterfowl. However, due to lack of rain, the second pond dried up. The trail name is “The Ponds Trail”. It can use some leveling, which hopefully Parks can assist with. The trail is about 1.5km long.

The GCOA owns the bush cutter, but a volunteer provides a tractor to pull it. We need more volunteers. Our costs cover volunteers’ expenses. IF trail maintenance was the responsibility of Parks, our costs would be much higher. These costs would be added to our fees for service and parks staff would deal with trail maintenance when time permits. 

On behalf of the Trails Committee, I would like to thank the volunteers, the GCOA, all cottagers and Parks for the support and cooperation. 

Joe Mudry, Chair
Grindstone Trails Committee