Today we finished our club's new trail. It started as a Trail Care Crew project, but it is much more than that. Our club is really new, and we wanted to do something really visible. So this new trail is in a heavily used, hiker-horse and bike area. ( don't worry, we'll be doing more bike specific projects!!) The old trail, which will be left intact, is a fall line erosion mess of jumbled basalt, not ride-uppable at all. The new route is a gentle contour trail, 894' long that winds along the bottom of a basalt scree slope, has a nice climbing turn, and then thought the forest and meets up with the other trail at the bottom.
here's the original route
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/FAT%20TIREsm.jpg
On the first day, a path was cleared through the basalt,
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/devilsdown1.jpg
and laid out in the woods. some log clearing was done
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/devilsdown4.jpg
then we came back and worked in the dry, ashy soil to cut the tread and and deal with the scree:
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3072sm.jpg
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3073sm.jpg
On the third day, it had rained some so it was much easier to work. We got the corner done, and some of the lower section roughed in;
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3110sm.jpg
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3115sm.jpg
Today, we did tons.
On the upper scree section, we brought in some gravel to fill in the holes that there was no getting rid of, and we knocked all the rocks on the outside edge of the trail down the side of the hill. The scree was a real drag - too rough to be very rideable ( everyone was *****ing about it, even the good riders) not fractured enough to armor and build nice technical lines, just jumbly and rough.
before:
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3132sm.jpg
after
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3155sm.jpg
Finished the bench cut all the way down to the end
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3141sm.jpg
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3142sm.jpg
and made the lower entry a little more noticable.
http://www.fttrc.org/photos/rs/devils/IMG_3151sm.jpg
all in all a good few day's work!!
http://www.fttrc.org
