Swift Creek Trail Work Party

I just got back from my first work party with WTA, or Washington Trails Association. For my 50th birthday I came up with a list of 50 random acts of kindness and asked people to choose one thing from my list to do instead of buying me birthday presents. Number one on the list was to do trail maintenance with WTA or PNTA. The work at Swift Creek benefited both WTA and PNTA, so it was a two-for-one special! Amy, a teacher from my school, signed up to do it with me. Our task for the weekend was to build wooden walkways across a boggy area.


We met Saturday morning at the trailhead, went over safety precautions and then carried shovels and other equipment down to our work area about a half mile down the trail. At one time there was a wooden walkway but only fragments of it remain. Earlier this year a Whatcom County Prisoner Work Release Crew cut and peeled the logs we used to start building.


Tools of our trade

The trail before. Lots of mud.

Using straps and groups of 8 to 10 people, we moved the 16 to 24 foot split logs along the trail, and then placed sills, the round logs that support the walkways, about every 6 to 8 feet. We buried the sills about halfway down and then placed the split logs on top the them, carefully leveling and using string to guide our work. It doesn't sound like much, but it was a lot of work. It was also a lot of fun!

Strapping the split log to move it down the trail

Sills line the trail. I dug in several of these.

These split logs are heavy!

Checking to make sure the sill is level

Lots of ripe berries made this work a lot sweeter!

WTA has three rules. 1. Safety first. 2. Have fun. 3. Do some work. I was with a varied and fun group. Arlen, the group leader, was an experienced trail boss, and his assistants Carol and Jon kept us on track. Out of our group of 14, 6 of us were newbies. One man, Jonathan, received his green WTA hard hat because he'd completed 5 previous work days, and Carol received a very nice black vest with the WTA logo for completing 25 work days. It is always nice to have your volunteer work appreciated. I got a free NW Forest Pass for doing 2 days work (a $30 value).

A Pacific Northwest Trail marker

Despite the drenching rains that continued off and on for the day and the hoards of hungry mosquitoes, we worked cheerfully until 3:30 and then hid our tools and headed back to the trailhead. Several of us had never seen Baker Hot Springs so we took the other path and hiked up to see what the spring was like. It was pretty nice except for the trash piles, bras and underwear. Baker Hot Springs is apparently a well known party spot. I don't quite get how you can just leave your leopard print bra and underwear in the woods, but I suppose if you're drunk or stoned enough, maybe you really wouldn't notice.

Baker Lake Hot Spring

We then headed back down to Baker Lake to a private Forest Service camp site where we enjoyed a potluck dinner. Arlen made some amazing cast iron stove potatoes and grilled hamburgers. Afterwards we cooked s'mores over the camp fire or huddled under the canopies trying to keep dry.


Our private campsite at Baker Lake

Most people set up tents at the edge of the lake, but I decided to sleep in the back of my car to avoid dealing with a wet tent. At 8:00 pm I called it a night and headed to the car. A couple guys stayed up late drinking and one ended up falling in the lake at midnight! I missed all the drama, snug as a bug in my nice dry car. The rain pounded down the entire night and several people ended up having to move their tents in the middle of the night as the lake rose at least a foot and flooded them out.


Here's the lake in the morning. Notice the dry land has almost completely disappeared compared to the previous picture.

In the morning we made breakfast, packed up camp and headed back up to Swift Creek. We were tired and I suspect at least one person was a bit hung over, but we made great progress and by the end of the day we completed 108 feet!

Amy and Anna dig sills.

Amy, Jonathan and I haul another sill down the trail



Amy pounds in the 10 inch nails

Most of Sunday I helped move split logs and sill rounds and dug in the sills

Jon makes us all Jiffy Pop popcorn during our lunch break

Jonathan, Joe, Jen, Anna and Amy work together to roll the split logs onto the sills

Now for the second log. Next they will be notched to fit snuggly on the sills.

Final step, pound in the nails with a mallet or sledge hammer.

I am one dirty girl!

The Sunday crew

We knocked off around 2:30 since most people had to drive home and get ready for work the following day, but many of us took the opportunity before leaving to hike down to the creek, which was a raging river with all the rain run off. We hiked back up, grabbed the tools and our day packs and headed back up to our cars. I was a muddy mess from head to toe and had to strip off my coat, rain skirt, gators and boots before signing out on the clipboard. We enjoyed some cookies and sodas before we hopped in our cars to head back to civilization. I'm sure that I'll be doing this again. I haven't had this much fun since belonging to Search and Rescue!