June 10, 1998 was National Trails Day. In the spirit of the event, I coerced several of my co-workers to join me for a little trail maintenance. Promises of heavy labour followed by a free barbeque gained me four volunteers; allergies and surprise visitors whittled that number down to one.

That's how Chadd found himself bouncing his shiny new Lexus along a forest service road an hour east of Seattle. Between pothole-avoidance manoeuvers he admonished me for not owning a sport utility vehicle. My sporty-yet-practical Mazda protege might have been slightly more appropriate for the road, but his leather seats and polished walnut dash were so much more stylish. Despite his grumblins, the three of us (2 passengers and 1 car) arrived at the trailhead in one piece and almost on time.

About 30 people were gathered at the trailhead listening to the safety speech. When it finished, we divided up into teams. They began listing projects: building a retaining wall, replacing "biscuits" (half-buried stumps that are used for steps) and asking for volunteers. It must have been too early in the morning for me because before I knew what was happening all the interesting jobs had been taken. Chadd and I joined Bob's team. He was the assigned the glorious task of digging trenches and clearing brush.

Bob was a big change from my previous crew leader. He was very quiet and low key. He offered no instruction -- he simply pointed at a problem spot and asked us to fix it. On my previous trip the leaders had asked us to build the drainage structures as big as possible. This time around, Bob seemed eager to make only cosmetic changes. Well, he's the boss.

The trail would make a good beginner's hike. It's very level, with nice scenery and wonderful views at the end point, a short 2 miles from the trailhead. Of course, add the above together and you get big crowds, which means big maintenance.

The day progressed quickly, with Chadd and I fixing up the drainage in several places. Bob went off to do his own thing and the other two members of our team seemed more interested in sitting down and having heart-to-heart chats then doing any actual trail maintenance. Around 11:30 or so, we hiked up to the lake and had lunch. Lunch was, of course, hummus, tomato, and cheese. This time around, I accented my standard staples with tortillas and a hunk of bread.

The view at Barclay Lake was great. A huge mountain towers over its green waters. (I think it's Mount Baring, but I'm not sure.) There must be gorgeous views from atop the steep face. The views from down below were not too shabby either. I took several pictures but trying to get the dark lake and bright cliff-face exposed properly on one frame just wasn't possible. Well, it would have been if I'd had this one specific filter, but I don't own one...time to buy more camera toys, I guess!

We packed up and started heading back to the trouble spots on the trail. We passed through a spot where the ferns were starting to grow onto the trail, and Bob made the mistake of giving me a brush whip to clear them.

A brush whip is somewhat like a garden rake. It has a 3 or 4 foot long wooden handle, and the end has short, sharpened teeth pointing up and down. One swings it through the brush along the trail to clear out ferns, grass... even small bushes and trees.

Wielding a brush whip is dangerous. Not poke-your-eye-out or slice-your-arm-off dangerous, but feel-the-wrath-of-god-as-I-mow-thee-down dangerous. The feeling of power as it slices through plants like so much softened butter is truly wonderful. At first I was tentative, wary of the power in the device. I would trim only a few feet away from the trail. But once I had gotten a taste, I could not stop. I would go back, chewing further and further into the bush along the trail. I never went further than a handle's length, but stopping there required a true mastery of the spirit.

We continued along the trail, leaving a swath of sickly green destruction behind us. The trail was littered with the bruised and bloodied (well, sapped) bodies of ferns, grass, and, apparently, one too many trilliums. While I was taking a quick breather a hiker (not a trail maintenance volunteer) walked up to me with a nasty expression on her face.

"You're not supposed to kill these," she spat at me, holding up a truly pathetic-looking clump of leaves. I was clueless. "What is it?" I asked. Her jaw dropped. "You don't know about trilliums...?" All I could offer was a simple, "Nope". She stormed off, dragging two children in her cloudy wake.

I'm a fairly laidback guy, so I just shrugged and continued with my labouring. With hindsight, though, I realize I had every right to be really nasty right back to her. First of all, I'm a volunteer. I'm spending a gorgeous Saturday morning slinging mud and mowing grass and I'm not getting paid. I'm doing this work for her and other hikers, because I'm just a gosh-darn nice guy. She could at least say thanks before chewing my ass.

Secondly, it really saddened me that she just stormed off. If I had done something so terribly offensive to her and to nature, she should have taken the time to explain what was going on. Are trilliums rare? Are they poisonous? Will my acts cause the world economy to collapse? I suspect none of the above. I think she was mostly mad at her bad timing. Going for a hike on or shortly after the day a trail is maintained can lead to some pretty ugly sights: trails covered in mown-down grass, fresh-dug trenches and dirt covering everything. But you know what? The beauty of nature is that she heals herself. The evidence of our maintenance will be gone within the week. And if we didn't do any maintenance, the trail would soon follow.

When you've got to mow down the ferns along 2 miles of trail, by hand, you don't really have the energy to pick and choose the fate of each plant. And besides, swinging that brush whip with all your might, carving down anything and everything in its path...well, they should put a warning label on those things. "Caution: the wanton destruction of plant life can be extremely gratifying."

But I digress. Chadd, Bob, and I continued along the trail, carving back the brush and fixing the odd drainage problem. Around 2:00 we called it quits and wandered back to the trailhead. We sucked back several pops but we didn't stick around for the barbeque because Chadd had plans for the evening. Oh by the way, on the off chance that someone from the WTA is reading this: if I won a door prize, could you let me know?

I hope nobody out there in web-land has misunderstood my little story of destruction. I was doing exactly what is required. It would be nice to be able to fix trails without having to mow down plants and dig big trenches. But like I learned on my first trail maintenance hike, unobtrusive repairs are also ineffective repairs. You need to make huge changes to avoid doing trail maintenace on a weekly basis. Like <insert your favorite athlete/shoe-pusher's name here> says: Go big, or go home.