No one wants to get lost in the wilderness. That’s not likely to happen now at the North Beach Nature Center where young Noah Foster, assisted by volunteers, spent several months on a much-needed project.
“This project involved blazing and developing a picturesque nature trail,” a project synopsis from Trail Life USA Troop MD-0513 explained.
On June 15, one week before Trail Life USA planned to honor Foster and two other regional “rangemen” with their prestigious Freedom Award, the 18-year-old Chesapeake Beach teenager — who is bound for Boyce College in Kentucky this fall — gave Southern Maryland News a quick tour of the “green trail.”
The tour was quick for two reasons. First, the trail is only one-third of a mile long. Secondly, the wooded area was teeming with horseflies. Although they are pests and aggressive, the horseflies are also part of the menagerie of creatures that call the wetlands home.
On this particular Saturday, Lisa Garrett, the town’s community conservation outreach coordinator and the nature center’s manager, was busy releasing Snappy, a one-year-old American snapping turtle, into the wetlands from the center’s Wildlife Point.
“She’s a beautiful beast,” Garrett said of the turtle. “She’ll end up weighing over 60 pounds and live to be 100.”
Garrett listed other denizens of the wetlands include otters, muskrats, egrets and a variety of small fish.
She embraced the idea of “blazing” the trail, that is placing red and green markings on trees to give trail hikers a sense of direction.
Garrett’s husband, Chris, a park ranger, served as a trail advisor while Foster completed his project.
The green trail includes a seating area, birdhouses and several signs crafted for the project.
“I wanted to give back to my community and give future generations something to enjoy like I enjoyed myself,” Foster said in explaining why he chose this particular project. Among the community amenities he has enjoyed is the North Beach boardwalk.
Initially, he had thought about possibly staining the benches along the boardwalk. However, when he ran that idea by town officials he was told that since the benches are the property of the people who purchased them — and in many cases, dedicated them to loved ones — that idea could be problematic.
Foster explained the nature center trail project was completed in two phases.
“In our first phase we had about six guys clearing out the trail and removing any debris,” Foster said, adding that step was done in November. “Thankfully, it was a good day to do it. We were able to clear out until we reached the [leaf] duff. The second phase was installing all the signage and the bird houses.”
The latter phase was completed in three months, Foster said.
A grand opening for the trail was held during Earth Day weekend, complete with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
A future expansion of the trail is not in the works, according to Foster.
“It’s a pretty small woodlands there,” he said. “We made the most of the area we had.”
While Trail Life USA is similar to Scouts USA, it is a separate organization, which was founded about 10 years ago. Members of its ranks are called rangemen.
In its synopsis, Trail Life USA officials state the organization “is a church-based, Christ-centered and boy-focused organization. Trail Life’s vision aims to mentor the youth and become a premiere national character development organization for young men.”
Foster’s troop is based at First Baptist Church in Upper Marlboro.
Along with fellow rangemen Joseph Cress and Zachary Van Ryswick, Foster will receive his Freedom Award on June 22 at a ceremony held at St. John Francis Regis Church in Hollywood.
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