Take a hike with Ken Kindler

Every second Saturday of the month, I lead a Sarnoff work outing for the Southampton Trails Preservation Society (STPS). Last weekend, I worked in the David Sarnoff Preserve with three members of the Korean Road Runners Club. To qualify for the Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run, Yi-Joo Kwon, had to do 8 hours of volunteer work on trails. He and two other members of the club offered to help clear the yellow trail that runs from the DEC parking area on CR 104 to where it connects to the Paumanok Path (PP).

The trail we were working on, originally part of the Paumanok Path, was engineered and cut by Ken Spadafora, one of the early members of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail Conference (LIGTC). The trail, using well-executed climbing turns, tops and then travels a ridge, running around a kettle hole, then gradually climbs a hill to give the hiker a glimpse of Peconic Bay. For a lovely 3-mile Pine Barrens hike, you can walk this yellow-blazed trail to the white-blazed PP, and then take the path back to the trailhead. Until the trails are better maintained, this walk will be more like bushwhacking than trail walking.

While Yi-Joo, club president, Do Yong You, and David Ahn used hedge clippers and lopers to clear the brush away from the trail, I repaired the vandalized blazing. They were good sports about the ticks and heat, and worked with the kind of energy you would expect from endurance runners. The blazing is now back to the way it should be, and some of the yellow trail is now open enough to walk on. Parts of this trail remain so badly overgrown that it is difficult to see where the path is. The DEC does not allow volunteers to use any power tools on the trails, and there are too few volunteers. Opening the trail up with just hand tools is tough, but it can be done if we can get some energetic volunteers.

The Wasatch Front 100 Mile Endurance Run is held in Utah the first weekend after Labor Day each year. The race begins near the East Mountain Wilderness Park about 17 miles north of Salt Lake City. The run stretches from Layton, Utah to The Homestead in Midway, Utah. The runners traverse the heart of the central Wasatch Mountains, one of the most beautiful ranges of the Rocky Mountains. The hikers of Long Island extend their thanks to the Korean Road Runners Club for their trail work, and wish success to Yi-Joo, in running this challenging race.

In another adventure this weekend, I continued my monitoring of the Protected Land Council's ATV Damage Mitigation Project in nearby Flanders. I visited a post and rail "kissing gate" erected by County Parks to discourage illegal motorized traffic and dumping. It marks the entrance to an interesting area to walk. To get there, travel east on Sunrise Highway, take Exit 64 (104N Riverhead), pass the "Welcome to Flanders" sign, and take the first right turn onto Pleasure Drive. The road takes a fish-hook bend by a guard rail, and there is parking for the PP in the "belly" of this turn. Be careful not to block the driveway if you access the PP from here. Continue on Pleasure Drive 0.2-mile, turn left onto Risa Court, then turn right onto Alissa Lane. A left takes you to the end of Marc Place.

Walk through the kissing gate (the gate openings are very close - almost kissing), about 200 feet to a trail that evolved at the boundary between County and private property. There are several trails that evolved from boundaries between County, State, and private land here. As the marked boundaries were walked, people veered away from obstacles and toward areas of interest. The dirt bikes and ATVs began using the area the "boundaries" drifted more, and many new trails further segmented the woods. Now, there is a spider web of loops and cut-across trails. As I walk this area, I inconspicuously mark the intersections with branches set down in a way I'd recognize, so I know where I've been, and can find my way back. Heading north, and using the Water Authority fence as a control point, I found a trail to a maple swamp. I took a left (west) turn at a Y-intersection before reaching the fence and found myself on the PP a bit east of the controlled burn area. If you walk this area, stay on the wide trails, avoiding high grass and brush. Now that the trail tread is no longer being ripped up by ATV tires, many interesting animal tracks can be seen on these sandy trails.

Ken Kindler is a Trails and Open Space Advocate working to help the trails groups and land managers care for our "Natural Island." If you would like to learn more about our trails or help care for them, visit the Hiking Long Island website. www.hike-li.org

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