Another Glorious Weekend

Another perfect weekend to go plow through the woods. On Saturday, Nate (I don’t know his last name) showed up to help. I waited until 9:30 for him but I was getting antsy so I headed out. I cleared for about an hour then I headed back up to the car to see if he had arrived. Sure enough, his car was there but he wasn’t. I left him a note and then headed back. I ran into him coming back up the road. He had been wandering around for about 45 minutes. Lucky I checked when I did. He showed up with his new Fiskar loppers and gloves. I put him to work opening up the trail while I chopped out roots. We got pretty far. We quit when I couldn’t decide which way to run the trail and our water was getting low. We were out of there at 1:30, a good 4.5 hours put in. I was whipped when we left. I stopped at the redneck grocery on the way out and got some Gatorade then I stopped at Truly Spokin’ and got a chocolate shake at the Tasty Freeze.

Sunday, Justin (I don’t know his last name) came out to help as did Nate. I brought my bike this time so I could ride what we had done so far. I think it’s not to bad but it’s hard to tell because it’s so rough still. A little dog decided to help out today also. Justin decided to keep her, he named her June. We started where we left off yesterday and managed to get to 1115 before quiting. I think I flagged to 1117 but I’m not sure if I like the route I chose. Nate has his loppers broke in good and Justin was on the ax clearing roots. I switched back the trail down a 10% slope through a couple of thickets. I think from 1116 to the end (113 it’s thick so it may be slow going the next time we get out there. Both Nate and I were getting tired and Justin had to meet some people for lunch so we got out of there around 1:30. So 8 hours Saturday and 13.5 on Sunday. 21 hours total for the weekend and the best part is is that you can tell. Next weekend I have a festival to work so we’ll give the woods a rest.

Another 1000 Feet

We (Barbara, Joe W. and I) pressed forward in spite of the weather to get some more trail work done. Barbara did some grubbing to get rid of the smaller growth. I widened the last 100 feet that I neglected last weekend and continued pin flagging the trail. Both of us were about ready to quit at 11:30 when Joe showed up. Barbara bailed back to the car and Joe and I went back to work until about 2:00. Joe took the ax and worked on widening the trail while I did preliminary trimming on the next 1000 feet. Joe went crazy with the ax so now it’s wide enough to drive a truck through (it’ll grow back). The slope I was dealing with was about 10 percent the way it was initially flagged so I had to do switchbacks to get the grade more manageable.  We worked on section 1095 to 1105 and we pin flagged to about 1110. maybe next weekend we can get out there both days. Oddly, there were lots of cows mooing across the creek.

The First Quarter Mile

The first quarter mile has shaped up pretty well. I rerouted a steeper section to keep the slopes down to around 5%. I whacked several 3″-4″ oaks in the process but the forestry people said I could remove any trees I needed. I also removed the stumps from the scrub oaks I cut out. An axe works a lot better than a mattock and it’s a lot lighter. I have one more small reroute to do going up hill. I didn’t check the grade until I had it cleared, but when I did check it, I found it was 6% and the section of trail was pretty exposed. Fortunately, being an open area, it won’t be hard to sneak it around a couple of trees. If the weather holds this weekend I want to take a bike on the trail and try to get the line established. I also hope to use the new trailer. It looks like it’s going to be stormy though.

First Attempt

I made it up to Blackwater this morning since the heat seemed to be gone for a while. Well, by 10:00 it was too hot so I may be several weeks too early. Anyhow I managed to put pin flags on about a quarter mile of trail (1078 to 1095) and I cut a quick path on about half of that. David wanted to see a short section of trail just so he could make sure we were on the same page. I got to use the new PORC clinometer on a section of trail that was approaching 10% slope and I managed to reroute it to get closer to 4%. I stopped clearing when I got to another steeper section and I was getting too tired to do any reflagging. There are some really nice dogwoods (I think they’re dogwoods) that I worked around. I also routed the trail into more wooded areas to help keep leaf litter on the trail, to help control sand and to keep us in the shade. Once David approves this attempt, I’ll be posting on the PORC website for trail help. I saw three turkeys, two deer, a snake and a fox squirrel. I was out about 4 hours.