This week, Nature 101's Paul Basham finds out who's responsible for maintaining the city's trail system.
Who maintains and grooms the hiking trails of Concord?
This question was partly answered for me when I was hiking a trail in the area of Broken Ground School and came upon a group of seven people working to improve the trail.
Led by forester Ron Klemarczyk, who maintains the city's trails, the group included Abe Nelson and Brian Varnell of Concord, Seth Blouin and Bridget Tevran of Boscawen, Zach Lillis of Deerfield and Deandre Perruccio, the team leader, of Pelham.
Klemarczyk was working slightly ahead of the others using a chain saw to cut the trees that had fallen over the trail into manageable sections. He was followed by Nelson and Lillis who were removing the trees that Klemarczyk had cut, along with other forest debris that was cluttering the trail.
Under the supervision of Perruccio and further back, Varnell, Blouin and Tevran were digging a draining ditch across the trail, giving a place for water to flow with minimum erosion damage.
Nelson and Lillis explained to me that they were part of the Y.E.S. team, which stands for Youth Environmental Services. They promptly pointed out their green T-shirts displaying the Y.E.S logo. The nationwide program, in the words of Ernest Hooper, “not only redefines lives, but in a small way, is redefining society.”
Rebecca Hebert, the city's planner, said that the conservation commission hired the Y.E.S. team for several days to work on some of the 56 miles of trails within the city limits.
The conservation commission also appointed a volunteer trails subcommittee of about 15 members to occasionally check the trails and advise the commission about improvements that are needed.
The subcommittee meets every fourth Wednesday of the month at 5:30 p.m. at city hall. If you would like to report a problem with a trail or help maintain a favorite trail, you can call the conservation commission at 225-8515.
