Volunteering: My Very Own Trailhead

One of my goals for 2013 is to volunteer more often.  In order to keep my Minnesota Master Naturalist certification active, I have to volunteer 40+ hours a year.  I tried to hold down an ongoing volunteer position with a local Environmental Education organization last year, but I wound up having to back out due to the ever-changing hours of my job.  I did a couple of trail-building shifts on the Superior Hiking Trail, but the dates they needed were weekdays - also incompatible with my work schedule.  Woe!  What's a wanna-be volunteer to do?

I know!  I went to the Superior Hiking Trail Association Headquarters to renew my membership - and volunteered to do Trailhead Maintenance.  We went through a list of available trailheads, and I picked the one that is closest to where I live: Reeves Road.

Reeves Road sign, standing upright

We've been to Reeves Road before - twice!  It's just up the road from Two Harbors - very close to my house.  As trail sections go, it's not very exciting: the northbound trail follows Highway 2 for a mile before turning off onto the snowmobile trail; the southbound trail follows the dirt Reeves Road for a mile before turning off into the woods.  Not exactly Wilderness, but it's something that I can do whenever I have time.  Trailhead Maintenance involves making sure that the sign is standing up straight (a trail-wide problem!!), there's no trash or anything littering the trailhead, the parking pad is in good shape, and that the paths leading into the woods are cleared and well-marked. If I'd been doing maintenance on this Trailhead last year, I would have been the person to inspect the damage done by the big flood and report back to the Superior Hiking Trail Association.  This year, I'll stop by once a month until the busy season starts, and then I'll stop by more often.

Thunderdog and Joe, exploring the ice sheet otherwise known as Reeves Road

In other news, temperatures have been hovering around zero and the wind has been just wicked in the last few days.  We had a brief January thaw last week - just long enough to melt all of the snow! - but now we're back into dead-of-winter.  I hope that we'll be able to go out for a hike/snowshoe sometime soon.  Planning for summer is all that I can do.