After purchasing the screws, I asked my friend, Cole Montplaisir, to help me post the trail markers. I informed Cole of the type of screws I was using and he brought over his power tools. Cole and I walked through each trail and placed the markers in their appropriate and previously designated spots. A challenge we faced though was that the marking tape that I had marked specific trees with was missing on multiple trees. As the trails are open to the public, I assumed that people walking through tore off the tape as it was found crumpled and away from its designated area.
Luckily, Cole and I are both experienced hikers and were able to post the markers accordingly by following the notes I had taken during research. The Red trail was shorter and was only missing a few marking tapes, but the Yellow trail was longer and missing the majority of its marking tape.
After completely reblazing the Red trail, Cole and I took a break and assessed when to begin the Yellow trail. We decided to reblaze the Yellow trail and finished despite the majority of marking tape missing.
When reblazing a hiking trail, trail markers should be a minimum as 50 yards away from the previous marker. If there is bountiful amounts of foliage along the trail, the foliage should be trimmed back and the next trail marker should be visible when standing near the previous marker. Due to high amounts of foliage, I had to trim back certain weeds, bramble bushes and poison ivy vines.
Upon posting trail markers, the screw or nail should leave about 1/2 of an inch between the marker and the tree to allow future tree growth. When posting the markers, I made sure to not post any on dead or dying trees as there would be risk of the markers falling down with the trees or being easily removed.
Overall, Cole and I successfully reblazed both the Red and Yellow trail in the Abbott Marshlands despite loss of marking tape and bountiful amounts of foliage.
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