Common Folk play at a picnic for trail cleanup volunteers on Saturday.
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — After cleaning up parts of the Appalachian Trail that run through the city, volunteers enjoyed food and music at the first annual North Adams Appalachian Trail Celebration.
City Councilor Joshua Moran, who spearheaded the project, said the group of nine started early at 9:30 and later met at Greylock School for a cookout with volunteers and hikers coming down from the trail.
"There has been a lot of work going on ... We did some cleanup this morning and now we are here to do a little celebrating," Moran said. "We have music from Common Folk, it's a super nice day, and we have some good food."
Moran said the group focused on two main projects: Pattison Road and the footbridge that crosses the Hoosic River near Phelps Avenue. Moran said the team also cleaned up parts of Massachusetts Avenue.
"We cleaned all that up and the sidewalk got nice and wide real quick," he said.
Moran said this area was focused on because the foot bridge has been undergoing work over the past year. McCann Technical School students redid the handrail and painted the concrete posts, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts students painted the bridge green and white, and Greylock Elementary decorated the bridge with handprints.
He said other improvements involved placing signage near the Greylock Club that notifies section hikers there is trail parking available.
"That is like a jumping-off point for a lot of section hikers yet it is kind of ambiguous and not a lot of people know about it so we kind of put a name to it," he said.
Moran is pushing for the city to become designated as an Appalachian Trail Community. The trail runs 90 miles through the Berkshires but only Great Barrington is a trail community. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is expected to rule on the city's application in November.
The nonprofit encourages trail communities as way to improve communications between hikers and communities, promote trail conservancy and have communities look at the trail as a natural and economic resource.
Moran said earlier in the season, an Appalachian Trail kiosk was moved from the Greylock Club to Greylock School, which he said is a much better location for it.
He said the kiosk was originally from Great Barrington and belonged to a friend of his that passed away.
"It's a super nice kiosk it was just of an out of the way ... it wasn't on the trail and people sort of forgot about it," he said. "The is kiosk has a little more meaning than just being at kiosk ... and now finally my good friend's kiosk is where it should be."
Guided tours of the local section of the trail were offered in the afternoon.
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Common Folk play at a picnic for trail cleanup volunteers on Saturday.
