Week 2 - New River Relocation

Crew 2 headed out to work on the New River Relocation just north of Pearisburg, Virginia. They continued on a 5-mile relocation that will connect back to the existing A.T. just south of Rice Field shelter. The Outdoor Club at Virginia Tech (OCVT) joined the crew for the weekend to help out with this huge project!! And of course they brought some delicious pizzas for the crew too enjoy after a hard week of work. Together, they built over 400 ft of new trail - which is a great amount considering all of the rocky terrain and all of the steps and rockwork involved! Check out some photos from another great week:

Some morning stretches before hiking up to the project site

Digging sidehill

Taking a much needed break!

Lots of rock work this week!

You definitely won't go home hungry after a week of Konnarock!

More rocks!

Beautiful new trail!

Removing some small roots from the soon-to-be trail

Making crush and fill

Spike camp for the week

The Konnarock Kitchen

Crew 1 is in Georgia for weeks 2 and 3 --- check back soon for more photos from their work on the Bull to Swaim Gap rehab project.

Have you been a part of the Konnarock program before?? Post your comments and share stories from your experience on crew!!

Week 1

And we're off!! Crew season 2011 has officially begun! Our first two Konnarock crews put in a lot of hard work and had a lot of fun! Week 1 was based out of our volunteer basecamp in Sugar Grove, Virginia. Both crews headed out each day to work on the Mount Rogers A.T. Club section of Trail near White Top Mountain. The crews installed 20 rock steps, several waterbars and some rock cribbing. They also made crush and fill ans used stepping stones to help harden wet sections of Trail. The crew had a short break from trail work to visit Trail Days in Damascus. They stood with their banner at the Damascus A.T. Community designation ceremony to show their support for the town and even marched in the hiker parade, hard hats and all! Check out some photos from the great week that kicked off the season....

Crew 1 ready for a day of work!

Putting in waterbars

A whole lot of rock work!

Beautiful flora along the Trail

Rock drill fun!

Crew 2 having tooo much fun!

The crew supporting Damascus as at the A.T. Community designation

Proudly marching in the Trail Days hiker parade! Thanks to Martha for sprucing up that banner!

Splitting spoons

Putting in stepping stones

Cleaning up equipment back at camp

Come join us for a week filled with fun!! REGISTER today!

Staff Training & Project Checks

Meet our 2011 Trail Crew Staff:

Crew Leaders: Josh Kloehn and Tori Kuehn
Assistant Crew Leaders: Kathyryn Herndon and Jeff Curtis
Camp Coordinator: David Hebert
(Hopefully we can capture a picture of the 5 of them sometime this season!)


While David worked hard to get basecamp ready for the upcoming season, the field staff did some training around camp and then headed off for a whirlwind tour around Southwest Virginia to visit all of the Virginia projects they will be working on this season. They had chainsaw training this past weekend and are headed south to do project checks in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennesse later this week. It's been a busy, but fun preseason! The staff are getting anxious for the first week of volunteers to arrive in Sugar Grove!! Check out a few photos from the past 2 weeks:

Putting in a few new rock steps on the demo trail at basecamp

Splitting some rock for the steps

Enjoying the view from McAfee Knob -- rough job!

Sidehill digging practice on the New River Relocation

Humpack Rocks

You can hang out with the awesome Konnarock staff and visit some of these beautiful places too! Sign up for a week or more of crew! Food, lodging, tools and training provided! Click here to register!