Arkansas: Our most physically demanding project in years!

Well, project number 42 and our first for 2025 is in the books. We mentioned it in our newsletter but the amount of work we did off the beaten path meant many of us had to hoof it miles into the woods just to get to the work site. But we didn't send just one crew in, we sent three; the third by boat. While these crews were hard at work out of sight, we had several other crews scattered around the park and nearby Arkansas Post Museum State Park (managed by the same staff), painting, repairing, demo'ing, clearing and cleaning. At the end of the project, we had knocked out 31 projects at the two parks, given back 1344 man hours, burned thousands of calories, lost a few pounds, and had an amazing time with our incredible crew. Here are some pics from our amazing 17-28 March project at Cane Creek State Park in Star City, AR. Photos were either taken by us or members of our team. Here's also a full list of our accomplishments. Not bad for a bunch of volunteers! ;)

Here's a full list of all the stuff we accomplished at Cane Creek State Park:

• We built 5 new picnic tables

• We cleared 2.75 miles of highway frontage and picked up 43 bags of trash

• We repainted tons of signs around the park including direction and informational signs

• We refreshed the campground by repainting posts and signs, repainting bathroom doors, installing fresh fire rings, and treating way too many fire ant mounds.

• We repaired, demolished, removed and/or built seven (7) trail bridge, many of which were miles off the beaten path. To get to these:

• We cut/blazed a 3/4 mile service road to get to a grouping of three bridges. We used EVERYBODY for this one!

• We helped demolish and install a new park entrance sign

• We reblazed two miles of trail that had fallen into disrepaired. We hiked in and out bring all the tools we needed, including chain saws.

• We cleared a total of six miles of trail, removed a lot a overgrowth and deadfall from several years of wind storms and freezes.

• We also performed one surprise project that they'll find one of these days and let us know! :)

At their affiliated Arkansas Post Museum State Park, we knocked all this out:

• We remodeled the entry to a shed where the doors were hampered by overgrowth. We layed down a new brick entryway.

• We hauled away old wood benches and tables.

• We conducted numerous shed repairs and resealing at two large sheds on site. We had some doors, siding and walls that needed repairing and one roof rafter that had broken.

• We pressure washed their main house.

• We filled dangerous holes at the gallows. Wait, we were trying to make the gallows safer??

• We rebuilt a cabin ADA accessible ramp.

• We painted benches and their entrance sign post

• And, we replaced a storm door on the museum.

Here's a great shot of what a typical bridge that we worked on looked like before we started.

The trash crew. We all felt we were doing Y2V community service!

The trash crew - 3 miles and 43 bags of trash

One of the many bridges our crew worked on!

Going in to do bridge work by boat was "fun" with many underwater obstructions.

Stan the man who ferried a chainsaw clearing crew onto the distant trail. They hiked their way out.

The Anthony's goofing off: How not to clear a tree from a trail!

Our amazing paint and park beautification crew!

Our paint crew headed out to Arkansas Post to paint this installed sign.

This crew tackled this storage shed doorway, clearing overgrowth and installing brickwork in front.

Kim G. taking a breather building an ADA compliant ramp at Arkansas Post Museum.

Our super capable crew building the Arkansas Post ADA ramp.

Good work is rewarded with more work. The bridge and trail crew installed Cane Creek's new sign!

The entry sign at Cane Creek going up!

Bridge 35 - the furthest!

Gary and the bridge he helped build.

Some of the incredible crew that worked on our trail bridges.

This is the crew that had to haul in by boat to demo this and another bridge.

Bridge 16 demolition work.

Bridge 16 demolition work.

We were blessed to have a father and son duo come out to play and sing for us.

Y2V Crew - Arkansas