We met at 9 AM at the Underhill Center park & ride and took one car to the Stevensville trailhead. The lot was already pretty full when we arrived, and skies were clear with temperatures in 30s as we started up Butler Lodge Trail around 9:20.

We saw a strange beech tree that looked like it had a small bush growing out of its cut off trunk, and I learned that this is called “pollarding” when it is done intentionally. We admired extensive recent work on waterbars along the trail and learned how recent it was when we met the GMC / Americorps group doing the work at Butler Lodge around 10:30. They had also been doing the same work on Maple Ridge and Frost Trails. There was lots of construction stuff around the lodge for the rebuilding of the porch, but we stepped around it and took a break for a snack in the lodge before continuing up Wampahoofus to reach the Forehead around 11:40.

The wind was mild until started the final climb to the top, but was pretty strong as soon as we got out of the trees. After a brief break at the top we headed back down Maple Ridge and Frost Trails to reach the car around 1:30.

Participants: Steve Titcomb, Greg Bostock, Jan Weyant, David Hathaway (leader).