MANLIUS — For his Eagle Scout project, a Fayetteville-Manlius High School senior has led the building of an emergency access road that leads into and, more importantly, out of the Three Falls Woods hiking area.
With the help of a group of volunteers, David Tyrel of Boy Scout Troop 152 chose to put his efforts into that selected service project in part because last year a Manlius Fire Department EMT sustained an injury that put him out of work for a month while trying to evacuate an injured hiker from that very preserve in a Stokes basket.
Tyrel more seriously considered the idea of creating such a trail when he was there himself with his father, Dan. At the time, the two were mountain biking.
“We came in from Sweet Road, we got to the top of the falls and it was super slippery, so I thought, ‘Wow, this could actually be dangerous,'” Tyrel said.
Tyrel said that when he first approached Manlius Mayor Paul Whorrall about doing the project, the mayor revealed that he and his board of trustees in the village had been interested in putting a defined trail through that hiking area for a while, especially after the fire department rescuer was hurt.
Manlius Town Supervisor John Deer also supported the idea, but there was the question of whether the trail would cross into the territory of conservation organization the Central New York Land Trust. Tyrel said that organization later gave him the OK.
The local Scout then went to the Village of Manlius offices and secured as many zoning maps as he could get his hands on, at which point he found out the village has a right-of-way easement on that segment of land leading up to and past the dam in the woods, he said. To the sides of where the trail and the gravel entry point are, the surrounding acreage off Glencliffe Road is private property owned by a local man.
The trail itself is about half a mile long, and it goes from that dam to the base of the waterfalls that gave the hiking area its name, where a turnaround spot was created. Past that point and up closer to the falls is a stream and land that has been preserved and protected by the CNY Land Trust.
Tyrel did a walkthrough during the process with Mike Serviss, a local conservation biologist with New York State Parks, to gain knowledge about the threatened plant species known as the Hart’s tongue fern and to make sure the project was avoiding and not getting too close to those ferns, which were determined to be about 20 feet up on the nearby slopes in the hiking area where the directional flags and ribbons can be found.
After Tyrel scoped out the site and marked out the trail with Manlius’ public works superintendent, Chris Sherwood, and the village’s fire chief Jansen Casscles among others, Tyrel’s proposal for his Eagle project was accepted by the Longhouse Council, the regional board serving parts of Central and Northern New York under Boy Scouts of America.
Tyrel, whose troop is affiliated with Fayetteville’s Immaculate Conception Church, was also assisted by his fellow Scouts as well as other local business owners, landscapers, teachers, and community members as they moved logs, put shovels into the ground, took axes and chainsaws to dead trees, built walls with rocks, used up about 30 yards of mulch, filled in a marshy swale, and cleared away piles of small brush to create the desired path for the trail.
From start to finish, the construction phase took about six days total. Four of those days were made up of sessions split into separate several-hour shifts, and then the extra two days were for laying down some gravel and putting on the finishing touches.
Tyrel said that some days were chilly and some days it was sprinkling, while on other days a decent amount of bugs were out and about like ticks and mosquitoes, so everyone was told to spray up and dress right.
During that stretch, Fayetteville’s DPW lent Tyrel their utility task vehicle (UTV) to speed up the job, a DeWitt firefighter allowed him a place to store that vehicle when it wasn’t in use, and CNY DIRT provided tools for digging. As the project was nearing completion, Tyrel drove through with that UTV and picked up garbage like tires, rusted cans and bicycle parts that Manlius’ DPW arranged to collect.
Tyrel said that beforehand a normal carry in-carry out would’ve taken a first responder roughly two hours, from walking in with the Stokes basket, to readying someone weighing 250 pounds or more for transport, to bringing them back out to safety.
His mom, Kristin Palazzoli, who is a volunteer engine and truck driver with the Fayetteville Fire Department, said that in addition to making it safer to enter and leave the hiking area the new emergency access trail could cut down response time from the moment a call is placed to getting an injured person back out up to an hour or so.
“It cuts it down by a lot, so I thought that was really pretty cool,” Tyrel said. “It could really be helpful to save someone’s life.”
He added that the hiking area contains steep sections, nooks and crannies where mountain bike wheels can get caught, and random slippery parts, especially after it’s been raining or when the snow is melting.
David’s dad, Dan, said, “We’ve had a few leaders in the Scouting council say that this was an ambitious, if not overly ambitious, project—and it was.”
Dan, who is an officer with the Town of Manlius Police Department and a leader for Troop 152, said carrying someone out can be tiring and even more challenging when day turns to night, adding that the project will make a difference for firefighters, paramedics, police on bike or foot patrol, any citizen helping out a friend, and anyone who gets lost.
To reach the Eagle rank, a Scout must earn 21 merit badges, be an active member of their troop, and finish a service project like this which benefits the community at large.
David Tyrel, who joined the troop in fifth grade, said he enjoys the communal aspect and long-lasting friendships fostered through involvement with the troop as well as the lessons he takes in relating to camping, fishing, cooking, survival skills, mentorship, navigation and self-reliance.
He said he was happy to have brought a range of different people and entities together for his Eagle project and that he appreciates everyone’s willingness to offer their time and help. Now that the construction portion is done, he looks forward to focusing on assembling the proper paperwork and preparing his presentation for the Longhouse Council.
