Syracuse.com - Update: Lean2Rescue crew busy this winter in Adirondacks

[HuntingNY-News]

“We’ve been moving from the western part of the park to the Eastern High Peaks. We’re looking for more volunteers from that neck of the woods,” Doug Arnold said.

The Lean2Rescue crew, a group of mostly Central New York area volunteers dedicated to renovating and in some cases building new lean-tos in the Adirondack Park, have been busy this winter.

See the group's Web site and photos.

The group, which was started about a decade ago by Baldwinsville resident Paul DeLucia, has to date refurbished nearly 50 lean-tos, providing the grunt labor and often the materials to do the work. They bring supplies and tools in and out of work sites on their backs, by canoes, on make-shift, trail-worthy carts or during the winter by dragging things on the snow.

The group’s work is far from finished. This winter’s work schedule has focused on six lean-tos in the state-owned, John’s Brook Valley area in Essex County, according to Doug Arnold, of Phoenix, a Lean2Rescue member and Adirondack 46er who’s leading this winter’s efforts.

“We’ve been moving from the western part of the park to the Eastern High Peaks. We’re looking for more volunteers from that neck of the woods,” Arnold said.

One project, which was started last winter, he said, involved dismantling a decrepit lean-to that was “at the end of its useful life,” and hauling all it parts to a “nearby” barn (10 miles away) of Hillary Moynihan, the Adirondack Mountain Club ‘Adopt a Leanto Project’ coordinator.

“We had to skid it out on the snow,” Arnold said. “We’re going to rebuilt it and use it to replace another lean-to near Wall Face some 20 miles away.”

Other projects involved moving and repairing several lean-tos that are too close to the brook.

“This year, with the lack of snow, a lot of this work has proved very arduous,” Arnold said. “On recent trip, we had the volunteers literally dragging 400-pound cedar logs and all our tools to a site 3 ½ miles from the trailhead.”

Last weekend, Arnold led a group of more than dozen volunteers who hauled in roof shingles in their backpacks for another lean-to.

“Some might say maybe that we’re not so bright, that we’re dumber than a bag of hammers,” he joked, referring to the Herculian-type ventures this group has been involved with over the years.

I know different. I once volunteered on one of their work weekends. They are extremely bright, motivated, unselfish people doing backbreaking work for free so that other outdoor enthusiasts may enjoy the Adirondacks and be safe for years to come.

View the full article on The Syracuse Outdoors Blog