On Wed. May 24th, 3 members of the River to River Trail Society, along with 4 U.S. Forest Service personnel and over 10 people from the Southern Illinois Backcountry Horsemen, gathered at Franks’ tract to cooperate to do some trail maintenance and upgrade work. There needed to be rock moved from a stockpile out, about 1 mile, to fill in some mud areas. There were 3 groups….”dumpers/spreaders” who were out at the area to be filled in…they simultaneously dumped the bag on each side of the horse, and then spread the rock, there were horse riders, who, while riding 1 horse, led 1-3 other horses which had a “saddle bag” of about 80 lbs of rock on each side of the horse, and then “loaders” at the stockpile of rock, who loaded buckets, then loaded those buckets into the saddle bags. This is all done because the trails are in a Wilderness area. We gathered about 9 am, soon went down about 1/4th mile to the small stockpile and everyone “picked” their job. It was a decent day temperature-wise. The Backcountry Horsemen were led by Cricket Simons, the Forest Service personnel by Alyssa McCuiba, and Bill Gilmour, Sam Morales and Chris Drone were from the Trail Society. We got done with the ‘section’ about 3 pm. All working, together, with a plan, cooperatively. got a nice amount done. 

Respectfully submitted, 

Chris Drone