Cherie and I were finally able to join the Virginia Four Wheel Drive Association (VA4WDA) for their annual Earth Day Cleanup event this year! Every year they work with the George Washington National Forest Rangers to coordinate this cleanup. Every year it includes the area around and/or on the Big Levels/Bald Mountain Jeep Trail. Every year this area seems to collect trash and so the association comes out to help clean it up again!
The association was provided free camping at the nearby Sherando Lakes Campground. What is normally a Day Use Picnic Area they opened for association members as an area to setup camp for the weekend. We really haven’t been nearly as involved in the association as we would have liked in the past so it was pretty much all new faces for us. But that didn’t matter as everyone was friendly and welcoming as it seems everyone in the four wheel drive community is!
Saturday morning we met at the pavillion and learned the details of our task and broke down into groups to tackle different areas. The Rangers emphasized some areas that had become dumping grounds for the locals that needed attention. They also warned us about various forms of meth making debris that could be found in the area and what to do if we did stumble upon any. Interestingly they also had us all sign in. Apparently the National Forest Rangers are able to turn in paperwork showing we helped to gain more funding or something. For this day of work, with nearly 40 volunteers present, they would be able to claim something in the neighborhood of 240 man-hours of labor donated. That’s the same as an additional forest service employee working for 6 weeks straight!
Cherie and I were in the group that was to clean the trail itself. We headed out and pretty quickly hopped out to start picking up trash. It never ceases to amaze me what we find on these kinds of trail cleanups. This day was no different. In addition to the pepsi bottles from the 60’s and 70’s which are always present we found some real puzzles. Like the empty bag for microwavable steamer broccoli when we were miles from electricity. Or the headlight that we found 20 feet off the trail miles into the woods. The most surprising one was the whole oil pan missing from some vehicle long ago. Not sure how you lose your whole oil pan but when it happens miles from pavement you’re not going to have a good day!
We really did try to do a thorough job on the cleanup. In addition to picking up trash we also performed minor repairs like reattaching a sign to a post informing a trail was closed to vehicular traffic. I’m not thrilled to see those signs either, but I respect them, not shoot them off the post like whoever was there before us!
The bulky trash like the oil pan and other large scrap we put into a fellow wheelers trailer. Despite that Cherie and I still walked out with 2 full trash bags of trash. There was barely room in the dumpster for our contribution though. The dumpster was nearly overflowing with other peoples already filled orange trash bags when we arrived back to camp!
Saturday evening was a chill evening in camp. Dinner was provided by the association which was nice, hot dogs and burgers. Cherie and I also took time to explore the amenities surrounding Sherando Lake. There is a very nice bathhouse and beachy swimming area. It was far too cold for anyone to be swimming but I can see the appeal of the area for families in the summer. We also got to talk with many of the other folks present for the volunteering event including the owners of a brand new JLU Jeep Wrangler. It was neat seeing one up close.
We had a great weekend and really appreciate the association working with the forest Rangers to provide this great opportunity for the four wheel drive community to give something back. The recreational off roading community has an image problem but when you actually go out and meet the people within the community you find the majority are nature lovers who just enjoying getting out and getting lost in the woods!
