The stone has almost vanished after a month and only 1 real rain. Should be out of sight soon as it rained again yesterday and more is supposed to come in a couple days. 42 bags of gravel, 50 lbs each gone. But not really. The stone adds support to the base and should keep things from becoming a sloppy mess making people walk other pathways that are not desirable for us AT maintainers.

Update: 2017 June: This really worked well. The stone pushed in and is firm. Water from all the rain lately has run off and only a few places had standing water.