Taking part in trail maintenance as a volunteer is fun, rewarding, helpful to the trail and other hikers, and painful when done just wrong.

I've had my share of those painfuls, but I've also learned a little. I learned from -- actually I forget whom -- but he was a long-standing member of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club. We were out somewhere in western Maine building a lean-to and a privy to accompany it.

It was during the privy-digging part, most of us watching while two people dug, that this senior MATC member offered, "Do you know how to protect yourselves from blackflies and mosquitoes?"

This had our instant attention, so we encouraged him to share his secret -- gleaned, no doubt from many years of building lean-tos and privies.

"You bury your face in mud," he said.

I never tried it. Just call me chicken. During my one clamming expedition with two friends from Wiscasset, I had had enough mud to last through approximately three lifetimes. I'd much rather have either or both blackflies or mosquitoes.

I've also learned that while climbing a mountain, Moody Mountain in this case, on a hot day, don't lug along a huge plastic bottle of Coca-Cola. I had a friend, I think the only friend I ever had who was not more a veteran of the Maine woods than was I. (Well, there was the guy who wanted to catch up with the cow moose and calf whose tracks we had been following through the mud on Wyman Mountain, the guy you don't want helping you do any trail maintenance work since he didn't understand that cow moose and their calves are lousy at trail maintenance. We'll get to him later.)

Another helper, John -- I'll call him that because it was actually his name, one of the handful I remember from the 'good old days' -- wanted to help me clear some brush atop Moody Mountain. I carried a small water bottle, empty from the road because I knew of a spring on the way up that would save me lugging tap water the distance to the spring.

John, a stalwart 'city guy,' thought he wouldn't take a chance on spring water. After all, it might not have been tested by the FDA or whoever doesn't test spring water. It wasn't. I'm sure the FDA had or has no idea the spring exists. If they did, they'd likely condemn it as unsafe because of its not being tested. And those guys aren't likely to march a couple of steep miles up a mountainside to test it.

John carried his huge plastic bottle of Coca-Cola. Of course, since he didn't carry a refrigerator or even a plastic picnic cooler, his Coke was a tad on the warm side. He offered me a sip. I declined.

John got sick as we worked. I didn't.

The other guy, the one who wanted to see the moose and her calf, had accompanied me on the five-hour drive to the AT at the foot of Wyman Mountain. We headed up the trail, where I wanted to check the corridor lines on both sides of the AT near the top.

I discouraged our catching up with Mrs. Moose and her kiddo. Before long, the guy discouraged our continuing. We were about a half-mile from corridor zero. He grudgingly tagged along, still hoping for a glimpse of Mama and Kiddo, while I hoped against it. I barely got a chance to glance at the corridor lines, when my guy decided it was time to quit.

He was supposed to be a friend, so we headed on down the trail.

Which is one reason I do most trail work by myself. If I decide to quit, I won't argue with myself. But usually I'm too stubborn to quit so slog on and get the volunteer job done.

During one of those solo adventures, again on Moody Mountain, I innocently attempted to remove a hanging branch that was about four inches in diameter and poised to leap from above onto some innocent hiker. I don't remember exactly how it all started, but at one point I had the branch swinging above me. On one of its arches, it caught me when I had turned to ward off some villain such as the mosquito against which I still refused to bury my face in mud. The branch caught me on the side of the head.

I know in movies there is usually music while the actors and actresses are making their way heroically through the forest in search of Bigfoot -- or a mosquito carrying a virus that will eventually knock out all of New York City if they don't capture it and develop an anti-mosquito juice.

On Moody Mountain, the music came at the same time as the stars appeared in the sudden -- unexplainable at the moment -- blackness. Also, it was at the same time as I had a sensation of swaying in that same blackness.

When I came to, I was still standing. Mr. Branch then came down with a vengeance, and I continued working with a headache.

But the moth was the most embarrassing 'injury' I encountered while trail maintaining on Moody Mountain. I had just made it to the top and was tired and hot while I rested before tackling the brush that always overgrew the trail there. Suddenly, something zoomed into my ear and began creating thunder while it tried to escape.

The motto here may be to always have clean ears so a moth can easily escape, so he -- or she -- won't have to cause you hours of thunderous agony. Or wear the earmuffs invented in Farmington -- if you don't mind really sweaty ears.

After several hours, the poor critter must have passed on to a better life. If you don't think moths pass on to a better life, think about it. Could any life be worse than being trapped in my right ear?

That night I went to the emergency room at the hospital in Norway, since I lived in neighboring South Paris. Of course, the doctor knew me since I was the pesky reporter who always asked embarrassing questions at those expensive dinners the hospital hosted to explain to potential donors how little money the hospital had with which to heal the ill.

"Don't tell anyone about this," I pleaded. "It's embarrassing to carry a bug in your ear all day and not be smart enough to quit and come home early."

"Of course, I won't," promised the doctor as he removed the very dead tiny moth and stepped out into the hall.

"Hey everybody, come see what I just took out of Milton's ear," he shouted.

And they did.

On one non-maintenance or corridor-monitoring walk in Acadia National Park, I did become engaged in some minor maintenance and with a major cut on my leg. I had walked the length of the west shore of Long Pond in Southwest Harbor and followed the trail as it wound into the woods and up the backside of Mansell Mountain to Great Notch, which believe it or not boasts old picnic benches alongside the trail.

At the farthest point from my Subaru, I came across a dead pine about six inches or so in diameter, blocking the trail. Like a race horse when he hears the starting sound or a beagle when he glimpses a snowshoe hare, I reached for the blowdown to remove it as would any seasoned trail-maintenance guy. I was lifting it, when it broke, and as part of it fell, one of those nasty, sharp, dead branches gouged my leg just above the knee.

There I stood, having survived so many jaunts for this and that volunteer project on the Appalachian Trail and other woodsy environs, watching myself bleed to death. I didn't cry. When they find your body, you don't want them to see you've been crying. Trail-maintenance guys don't cry.

They make decisions. I calculated how fast the blood was dripping -- too fast -- and how long I had for this world. Then another thought crossed my frightened mind. I was a little over an hour or so from 'Sally' Subaru. What if I walked faster than I bled.

What an idea. Would I make it out?

I must have.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@midmaine.com.