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Building trails and career skills
AmeriCorps member Scott Hrinko unloads the tools the Palmetto Conservation Corps team will use to construct a new footbridge on the Palmetto Trail. An avid backpacker, Hrinko joined the project to learn trail-building skills. He aspires to a new career with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
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Digging in
AmeriCorps member Laryssa Kalbfus, an environmental science student from Connecticut, and Jose Perez, a trainer with Benchmark Trails, clear holes for posts that will support a new bridge on the Swamp Fox Passage.
Photo by Andrew Haworth
The early morning peace of the Francis Marion National Forest is shattered by the sounds of chainsaws, ATVs and the aroma of bug spray.
A small team of trail builders has trekked into the woods, slogging through muddy pathways, occasionally swatting away the ever-present mosquitoes and dodging spiderwebs that always seem to cross the trail at face-level. As the morning fog clears, work is well underway on a closed section of the Swamp Fox Passage, a 47-mile stretch of the cross-state Palmetto Trail.
The passage has been closed to visitors because of its aging “bog bridges”—long narrow sections of split logs laid out across the ground that hikers can use to traverse flooded and muddy portions of the trail. The logs have been here since the Palmetto Trail opened in the early 1990s. They are wobbly and rotting in some places, and no longer safe.
The crew of five here on this crisp October morning is pulling out the old logs to make way for wide, safe bridges that not only keep hikers’ feet dry, but elevate the viewpoint over the swampy long-leaf pine forest. This will enable guests to get a better view of burbling streams, ancient trees, and possibly rare wildlife, like the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.
“This forest has always been special,” says Marie Butler, the Palmetto Conservation Foundation’s trail technician for this section of the Palmetto Trail. “Unfortunately, Mother Nature is constantly dropping trees across our bridges.”
If you’ve ever hiked any of the 375-plus miles of the Palmetto Trail, which crisscrosses the state from the coast to the mountains, you’ve benefited from the efforts of the foundation. The organization, founded in 1989, relies on the work of volunteers to maintain the network of trails, whether it’s clearing brush and removing downed trees after a storm, or repairing and building boardwalks and bridges.
With only three full-time employees, the Palmetto Conservation Foundation has always had to get creative when it comes to finding ways to maintain the trail system. To that end, they formed the Palmetto Conservation Corps, a partnership with AmeriCorps. Each year, a group of AmeriCorps members spends six months living and working exclusively on trail projects in the state, says program director Rachel Price.
The AmeriCorps teams and other volunteers “make our mission possible,” Price says. “They have done maintenance, repairs, or trail-building on 22 of our 30 passages, but that does not include the work they have done with our partners in state and national parks and forests that aren't necessarily Palmetto Trail projects.”
AmeriCorps is a federal program that engages adults in public service work. The partnership has become an integral part of keeping the Palmetto Trail maintained. It also gives participants valuable experience to help them launch careers in conservation, parks and forestry.
“They graduate our program with the tools to be successful in their pursuit of a career,” Price says. “Teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, conflict resolution, project management, time management, and budgeting are just a few of the many skills our members gain experience with while serving in the Palmetto Conservation Corps.”
Taking a break from augering holes and clearing brush, AmeriCorps member Joe Kraft digs into a bag of trail mix and explains his goal to work with the National Park Service. A 2019 graduate of the NPS Law Enforcement Academy, Kraft says the variety of work assignments has given him experience in everything from running chainsaws to properly managing trails.
“It looks good on your resume for the National Park Service, so I decided to give it a try,” the Knoxville, Tennessee, native says. “Just seeing the variety of the parks in the state is really neat—and the different assignments.”
A notable example of the collaboration is the elevated boardwalk on the Wateree Passage, which runs through a portion of Richland County, through the Manchester State Forest in Sumter County. AmeriCorps members helped construct the boardwalk to raise the trail out of the flooded swamp, running three-quarters of a mile to connect with the Ed Sellers Bridge.
“It is a beautiful project and allowed our members to gain technical skills in laying stringers, placing deck boards, and building handrails, as well as the ins and outs of safety standards,” Price says.
Those are the types of skills Scott Hrinko hoped to learn when he joined the corps earlier this year.
In March, Hrinko, 45, was making his second attempt at a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail —a 2,200-mile odyssey that runs from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. The Garden City native hiked 10 straight days north from Georgia and was near Franklin, North Carolina, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shutdown of the trail.
Rather than go back to a job in the Myrtle Beach tourism industry, Hrinko decided to join AmeriCorps, and hopes to eventually work for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
“I did a desk job for 20 years. I really wanted to be outside more,” he says. “It’s nice to get out here and hike, but to actually build [the trail] and see what it takes to do it, it’s satisfying,”
It’s also hard work. The 2020 team sweltered their way through a typical South Carolina summer, and even as temperatures dropped in the fall, the mosquitoes remained a source of frustration. Some members of the team were looking forward to getting out of the swamp and heading upstate to their next assignment.
“It’s buggy,” says AmeriCorps member Laryssa Kalbfus, an environmental science major from Connecticut. “I’m not from the swampy areas, the mountains are probably closer to what I’m used to.”
On the Swamp Fox Passage, the AmeriCorps members have been working with Benchmark Trails, a company based in Greenville that does contract work for state parks, private landowners, and groups such as Palmetto Conservation Foundation. Employee Jose Perez has been engineering bridges on this section of the trail and serving as a trainer to the AmeriCorps members.
“Having extra hands definitely doesn’t hurt,” Perez says after instructing Kraft and Hrinko on how to safely operate a chainsaw. More importantly, volunteers on the trails are learning how to be good stewards of the environment.
“We’re creating safe passage for the public to access public lands in a way that doesn’t harm these wetlands,” Perez says.
By the end of their workday on this section of the Swamp Fox Passage, the corps members have removed the old bog bridges, cleared brush and trees, dug holes, and started building the foundation for a new bridge. Butler has been working right alongside them.
“They did a good job here, considering this is the first time they’ve built a bridge,” she says.
Work like this makes the trails more accessible to everyone, Butler says, and with the pandemic still affecting life in the state, the trails provide outdoor recreation with safe social distancing and peace—especially for children and families.
“It’s a safe place,” she says. “If you get out and take a leisurely walk for an hour, you’re going to get exercise, good clean air, and it’s just a good healthy way of bringing kids out.”
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How to help
For more information or to apply for the 2021 Palmetto Conservation Corps program, contact Rachel Price at rprice@palmettoconservation.org or (803) 771-0870. Applicants must have a high school diploma or equivalent, and provide a resume, cover letter and professional reference. Corps members must be willing to make a six-month commitment to the program. For additional details, visit palmettoconservation.org/palmetto-conservation-corps/.
You don’t have to be a member of AmeriCorps to help improve the Palmetto Trail. Anyone can volunteer for trail workdays that are regularly scheduled throughout the year. Help is often needed after storms to clear downed limbs and trees, and to repair washouts and landslides. Announcements concerning closures and workdays are posted on Facebook at facebook.com/PalmettoTrail.
For more information on volunteering, visit palmettoconservation.org/volunteer or contact the trail coordinator at gee@palmettoconservation.org; (803) 771-0870.
Want to hike? Detailed information, maps and directions to all trailheads of the Palmetto Trail are available on the web at palmettoconservation.org.