Post by Chloe Tremper, Science Educator
Have you ever gotten lost on Hurricane’s trails? We hope not, but now it will be even harder to do so as we have recently redone our entire trail system! Don’t worry, the same old trails are still there – they’re just cleaned up and clearly marked with different color blazes. This project has been a long time coming and was initiated earlier this summer by Olivia, one of our science education interns. Olivia has worked on many trail crews in the past and upon her arrival noticed that Hurricane’s trail system could use a little sprucing up.
Olivia and I started this venture together by purchasing the paint and other supplies needed and began with the coastal trail since it is one of Hurricane’s most popular trails. The coastal trail is now marked with green blazes and a few cairns where there weren’t many trees.
Sadly, life on Hurricane got busy and by the time we were ready to carry on with trail marking Olivia had to head back to Vermont to finish up her senior year at UVM. Since her departure though, I have successfully marked all of our trails with a few helping hands of course – and sometimes without! Slocum’s trail is now marked with blue blazes, the high cliffs loop trail is blazed with red, the trail to sunset rock is a nice pastel orange, and the trail from the lab to the ice pond through the woods is yellow. If you find yourself on a trail that has two blazes (one of the above colors and white) on the same tree- you’ve ended up on a connector trail!
In addition to trail blazes, you’ll also find some handy trail signs posted to point out trailheads off of the main roads. All of these signs were either wood burned using magnifying glasses or painted by us. On top of that, we have roped off areas that are either closed trails or not trails at all – we are hoping to start trail regeneration monitoring soon so please respect the rope!
Hurricane’s trails are ready for you so come visit us & go for a hike! Download our newest trail map here!
