When a winter storm tore through the region in April, it felled enough trees in Bear Brook Park that the last fallen trunks and branches were cleared from trails just in the past month.

Some debris remains, pushed to the side of the trails and ultimately, the storm delayed the park’s spring reopening by a week or two, according to park manager Christina Pacuk. The whir of chainsaws continues to disrupt the serene environment.

Luckily for the park and its staff, numerous volunteers turned up to help clear away the evidence of the storm, a bunch of them from Southern New Hampshire’s chapter of the New England Mountain Biking Association.

“The amount of damage we sustained was immense,” Pacuk said. “We were here in March, and we were so ahead of the game. We had the campground ready. We were ready for campers, and then we got hit with snow and all these trees came down. It was very hard to go from ‘We worked really hard. We’re ready to go. We’re gonna be on time,’ to ‘No, we’re not now.’”

The storm brought heavy snow and high winds. Huge trees fell into the fishing pond. Some crushed wheelchair ramps, railings, and wooden platforms. Others brought down power lines, blocked roads, made trails impassable, and even fell on the lodge of the Student Conservation Association, temporarily trapping 28 students inside.

The first task was freeing the students from their lodge, which took about a day. After that, attention shifted to repairing fallen wires, removing trees blocking roads, and clearing the campsites, which were slated to open soon.

Volunteers banded together with staff to help Bear Brook resume its usual operations, a labor of love and devotion for a park that’s given them so much.

“We had to really pull our resources together to get this done,” Pacuk added. “It was a very daunting task to be struck in the face like this.”

The volunteers from the mountain biking association proved especially vital in the recovery process since members were able to turn their attention to clearing the network of trails spanning across the 10,000-acre park while Bear Brook staff dealt with other damage.

“Every day they had people coming from their organization cutting with handsaws,” Pacuk said. “They contributed so much to helping us get this open. We had individual volunteers coming in as well, trying to pick up sticks and throw them in the woods.”

Josh Freed volunteers in the park as part of the mountain biking association’s regular trail-clearing team. The Deerfield resident, whose backyard borders Bear Brook, said he and his fellow volunteers had finished their regular spring upkeep work right before the storm hit.

“The storm came through and undid everything,” Freed said. “It was just a mess. We had at least as much work to do as we did just from the normal winter and no time to recover and rest. It just came right after we finished. It was a double whammy.”

With his handsaw and other tools stowed in his backpack, Freed biked through some of the more remote areas of the park to clear lesser-used trails. He and his fellow mountain bikers, Peter DiSantis, Tim Miller, and Dan Dwyer, created a spreadsheet to keep track of what trails needed attention, and people around the park reported downed trees as they came across them.

“We all have been mountain biking for years and have the mindset of giving back to the trails and the park we use frequently and love,” DiSantis said. “It’s a responsibility. Many different places we ride across the state usually have a local person or two who takes ownership of the trails and helps maintain them. Since we live next to Bear Brook, it’s kind of our job to take care of this park.”

The mountain biking association helps care for the trails year-round, but the past months of dealing with storm damage reiterated their connection to the park. As for the staff, they said they had not seen damage like this in almost two decades.

Some volunteers and park staff have chainsaw training and certification that allows them to cut larger, thicker trees. Pacuk’s husband, Andrew Pacuk, who works as the non-motorized trail coordinator for New Hampshire’s state parks, dealt with some of the more complicated fallen trees. For trees too large for anyone to move, the park enlisted help from the state.

“You have to identify the hazards and identify the lean – is it going right, left forward, back – and there’s always two types of lean,” he said. “You have to realize if the tree is snapped, is there a calm widowmaker, something that could fall on your head? Do you need a rope or a wedge to help tip it over? Do you need rigging? It’s figuring out your game plan because each tree hung up is a puzzle you have to figure out to make sure it gets down safely.”

Pacuk felt heartened by the support the community showed for the park in the aftermath of the storm.

“We had people that we had never even spoken to or worked with before that came out to actually help us, people from NEMBA and individual volunteers,” she said. “We had a lot of people that live nearby, that were trying to get involved and trying to help get their favorite park back open.”

For her, the storm will always be emblematic of the people who banded together in the aftermath.

“We all just kind of come together and make the park run round,” she said. “So definitely couldn’t do it without having every walk of life in here.”

Rachel Wachman can be reached at rwachman@cmonitor.com.