Take a look at West Virginia's Dolly Sods wilderness on a Google Earth map and you'll see one, maybe two stray roads cutting through what is otherwise a vast expanse of hundreds upon hundreds of acres of untouched forest.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF ED LEONARD
Leonard works to split a tree that's fallen across a trail in the sprawling Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia.Leonard (left) with the other members who made up his group of Wilderness Volunteers during his 2012 trip to Dolly Sods.
While spending seven days performing manual labor in that wilderness, miles from even a hint of cell service, might not sound like the ideal vacation for some, for former PequannockPolice Capt. Ed Leonard it's not only a getaway, but also a chance to give back to the natural world that he has devoted so much of his life to.
Leonard, 64, has always been a self-described outdoorsman who could "sit in the woods and watch the trees grow all day," but on his most recent trips, he's been actively helping the park services maintain its thousands of miles of trails through the programs run by an organization named "Wilderness Volunteers."
According to its website, the group was created in 1997 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to work with public agencies like the National Park Service (NPS) to organize volunteer trips into "America's wild lands" to assist in performing upkeep work that might otherwise never be done.
Leonard, who lives on Manor Avenue, is a trail supervisor for Pequannock's Mountainside Park and is long accustomed to performing those tasks. Introduced to the Wilderness Volunteers by his nephew, Mike Leonard, he seized what he thought to be a "great opportunity" and took his first trip in 2011.
On that expedition, he and a handful of other volunteers hiked 7 miles into the 47,815 acre Cranberry Wilderness in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia, set up a base camp, and for the next week, reconditioned about a mile-and-a-half of trail.
West Virginia storms can be brutal on the narrow paths. Washouts, fallen trees and limbs, and the total disappearance of the marked routes can be a regular occurrence. The volunteers' job, he said, was to go in and clear them out by removing rocks and fallen trees, rebuilding trails, and reinforcing them with stone where necessary.
"It's pretty strenuous," he said. "You have to be in a little bit of condition to do it."
Leonard, who admits that it takes a "certain breed of person" to go into the woods entirely dependent on what they're carrying in their pack, was hooked, and he returned this past October to a different part of the park — Dolly Sods — with another group of volunteers to once again rely on their axes and the strength in their spines to give something back.
By the time the sun sets, workers are eager for dinner. The food, said Leonard, is provided by the National Park Service and is surprisingly good. Afterward, they use their leisure time to talk, take pictures, fish, and unwind however they so choose.
The program is not without danger — in the interest of "keeping it wilderness," he said, the trails are sparsely marked, and no power tools or mechanized vehicles of any kind are allowed. If someone gets hurt, they're a long way from any kind of help.
"We stress that when we're out — be careful with the equipment. If you fall down and break a leg, it could be six or 10 hours before you get help," he said.
On his 2012 trip, he said, the NPS gave the group a small pocket device with a satellite connection that could send out an SOS if necessary, but that doesn't shorten the trek in.
Despite that danger, Leonard said that the sense of purpose that clearing a trail gives is immensely rewarding.
"It's such a feeling of accomplishment at the end of the week. You feel like you made a difference for the trails, and for the people that you'll probably never meet but you made the trail better for them," he said. "It's a good feeling."
Leonard and his group have already been invited back to Dolly Sods, he said, and he suspects that he will wind up there again in 2013. Of course, he is also considering visiting a more adventurous site somewhere in Colorado or Arizona.
One thing is certain, however: when he goes, he's going on his own. His wife, he said with a laugh, does not come with him.
"She understands my love for the outdoors and she's very supportive with it…(but) she's not a hiking/camping-out person," he said.
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