Trail: Just Like Starting Over

After the fire and so much being bulldozed, I had a tough time resurrecting the original trail. Several sections required a completely new route, as the old was buried and destroyed.
So during the summer I gave it a rest, as the poison ivy was everywhere.
We just had a couple of good frosts, which killed of the ivy, so I began cutting the pop-up underbrush which simply can’t be uprooted from the trail. That’s work enough, but then there was some summer dead-fall to chop and break from lying across the trail. Most rotting hollow logs aren’t that hard, regardless of being over a foot (30cm) in diameter. I found about a half-dozen.
Imagine my shock, though, that the burned over parts were completely grown over with vigorous woody shrubs. It was as if I had never cut the trail.
I’ve decided on those parts I’m simply going to bypass the woods and follow the old clearcut sections. That requires cutting underbrush, too, but nowhere nearly as much. I figure I’ll be done just about the time spring comes back and the poison ivy blooms again. At some point, I’ll cut through a bit of new trail to rejoin the old. Otherwise we end up crossing mud flats which are like quicksand when it rains.
Yeah, it’s the hobby thing, and the cutting is as important for exercise as the use of the trail. Mr. Camp Ax and Mr. Steel Shovel, we got work to do.