As a member of a trail crew that focuses on primarily level 1 maintenance, I’ve spent a lot of time this summer clearing trail corridor. Essentially, this involves lopping brush alongside trails to maintain a certain standard of trail corridor dimensions. In practice this means long hours spent bent over trimming bushes and clipping roots. I’d be lying if I said that I always enjoy lopping. It is a tedious and sometimes frustrating task (especially when dealing with every trail worker’s arch nemesis – Hobblebush), but the many hours I have spent lopping away in the woods have also taught me a lot.
As it is inherently slow work, clearing trail corridor forces one to slow down not only one’s movement, but one’s thoughts. It slows down life. While lopping, time neither seems to move slow nor fast, but peacefully. I’ve come to appreciate lopping as a means of meditation, in a sense. Lopping allows me to take a step back from the hectic nature of everyday life and sit with my thoughts, listen to an audiobook, or simply appreciate where I am. This little task has taught me to appreciate the moments in life that may seem dull at first glance, as these times are valuable chances to escape the hustle-bustle of life.
Lopping also forces one to spend time up close and personal with the soil, the plants, the fungi, and all the aspects of the natural world that can be easily glanced over. Lopping has shown me the incredible biodiversity than can exist in the White Mountains, the amazing ways in which plants can grow to find that one little patch of sunlight, the ways different plants spread their roots, how different species occupy and share spaces, and other such intricacies of plant life that I was aware of before but had never spent much time truly experiencing for myself. All my time lopping has also caused me to notice a lot more of the smaller details of the natural world. Before this year, I wasn’t necessarily the type of person who was always pointing out mushrooms or flowers. But because of time spent lopping, I now notice these things more and more. Taking the extra second to stop while hiking to get a closer look at a mushroom when I’m out in the woods is now routine for me, and I believe that lopping is to thank for that. Lopping has given me an appreciation for parts of the world around me that I didn’t fully appreciate before, simply by forcing me to slow down.
Now, while everything I have said so is true specific to the act of lopping, I am also using lopping as a metaphor for trail work in general. The most important lesson that trail work has taught me this year is the value of slowing down and spending time in nature in a more immersed and observant way. In doing any trail work task, whether it be clearing trail corridor, clearing blowdowns, clearing and reshaping drainages, building erosion control structures, or even something like smashing rocks, one is always forced to spend periods of time immersed in a certain area of the surrounding environment. This gives a precious opportunity to build a connection with that area, and from that connection stems a connection to the greater natural world. The fascinating lessons I’ve learned from spending time working in one small area of the woods don’t leave me when I move on to the next. They will stay with me for the rest of my life. And while some trail work tasks aren’t as slow as lopping, they all are slower than the ways I had interacted with the surrounding environment before this summer. Previously, when I would be running, mountain biking, skiing, or hiking on a trail, I was always moving too fast, with a place to be, and would rarely stop to smell the roses and admire all that I was missing. Trail work has taught me to slow down and appreciate parts of the natural world that I hadn’t before. It also, as I mentioned previously, has shown me that time spent in nature can be a powerful way to escape from the outside world and can provide a way to slow one’s mind and allow for clear thinking and relaxation. This is something I already knew from spending time outside, but trail work has heightened my understanding. I believe that I will be leaving my time with the LRCC with an increased appreciation for the world around me as well as a new way to look at time spent outside, and I have trail work to thank for that.
Gunnar recently ran in the SLA’s Annual Squam Ridge Race, placing 6th overall out of 105 runners, and placing 2nd within his age group! You can learn more about Gunnar here.