Boy Scout reconnects trails, pursues Eagle rank

Published 12:15 pm Saturday, July 22, 2017

For the past five years, the trail has been sectioned off.

Behind the small, smooth-surfaced pond, the multitude of plants from every corner of the globe, and the sprawling Greek-Revival home that make Lockerly Arboretum one of Middle Georgia’s most fascinating places, a small section of trail underneath an observation deck had provided visitors a unique vantage point to the arboretum for many years. After insects, inclement weather, and falling trees served as Mother Nature’s instruments of change, a local soon-to-be Eagle Scout and his troop have resolved to help reconnect a trail that has been a favorite for arboretum visitors.

“My family’s been coming here since I was a lot younger,” said Baldwin High School senior Wiley Bennett on the site of his Eagle project. “I think my first trip was when I was still in kindergarten on a field trip, so I would have been about 6 at the time … I knew Lockerly always had projects available, so I came out and asked Greg [Eilers, Lockerly’s Director of Education], and he presented this as the first option. I wanted to do this one because I wanted to build a lasting project.”

“When I first got here, this was a great trail,” said Eilers, who has been teaching visitors about Lockerly’s flora and fauna since 2005. “We had a lot of trees die in an ice storm, pine beetles getting into some of the bigger pines, and a bunch of different chains of events, but because of the terrain, we couldn’t get equipment back here to clean it up. We had to kind of let the woods do their thing and just plan to clean up afterword. … We’ve finally been able to clean up enough to get it back.”

The unnamed section of trail, which is located behind and to the right of the arboretum pond, stands out even among Lockerly’s exotic specimens. After dipping down to a lush creek bed that looks more at home in the Blue Ridge than it does in Milledgeville, the trail crosses the stream and begins a steep climb up a small embankment, near where the observation deck once stood. When a falling tree that landed on the bridge rendered it unsafe to walk across though, arboretum staff felt compelled to cordon off the entire section of trail. After years of the trail being considered inaccessible, Bennett has designed a brand new bridge and a plan to build it across the stream.

“There was a lot of paperwork involved,” said Bennett of submitting his plan for the bridge. “I turned in a 3-D rendition of the bridge that I built using Sketch-Up, which is a 3-D modeling program. I turned that in with some pictures of the existing bridge before we took it out and made the diagrams using Sketch-Up, so that all helped in making this.”

Last Sunday, Bennett, Eilers, and several helpers from Bennett’s troop began digging foundations for the bridge on either side of the creek, often referred to as an ‘anchorage’. After letting the cement dry around the bridge’s main posts, which takes around a week, he plans to graft the bridge onto the posts and ensure the bridge’s safety for people crossing over the creek. Although more work is needed to clear the trail and the area round the old observation deck, Eilers said that the bridge will help re-open a unique and intriguing part of the grounds.

“It’s got neat terrain, and there are some really neat trees back here like this tulip poplar, which is a beautiful tree that nobody really gets to see,” he motioned. “Field trip-wise, this is a very interesting area to use, and we haven’t been able to use it in a very long time … Some people really loved this part and were really sad when it shut down, and still ask about it even though it’s been years since we’ve had it open.”

The project has special meaning for Bennett.

“We’ve had scouts within our troop do projects at Lockerly before,” said Bennett on helping people enjoy the trail once again. “It’s a place that I actually visit, so it has a bit more meaning to me.”