This is February?

It’s been unseasonably warm for February, probably mid sixties today. I hope summer is tolerable. Chris and David helped out again today and we got 1200 feet of trail rideable. They have been a big help the last two weekends. We started at 2038 and recleared the 300 feet I did last Sunday plus rough cut, widened and raked all the way to point 2050. This looks like a fun section to ride as it’s mostly an open area with some tight pieces through thickets. I haven’t scoped out the next 1400 feet but I hope it goes as fast as the last several sections. We got in 4.5 hours each for a total of 13.5 hours. I made them listen to Amy Winehouse on the way home. It may have scared them off. Tomorrow is going to be taken up with yard work, a bike ride and rain. Also, two huge cargo planes flew over, either a c5a or a c17, I can’t be sure. They lumbered over barely moving. Pretty impressive.

Volunteers

Saturday, David D. and Chris P. volunteered to help out. That meant the schnauzer got to stay home. David and Chris rode phase 1 while I hauled all the tools and two lunch boxes to the beginning of phase 2. Phase 2 is mostly up hill and with the trailer fully loaded, it was quite a haul. I set them up with lopping and cutting while I pin flagged as much as I could. We managed to knock out a whopping 1000 feet of rideable trail by day’s end. The only thing lacking was a good raking to finish it off. If I had more pin flags we probably could have rough cut another 1000 feet but I was using what I had. Lovely sandwiches were provided by Barbara and the weather was very spring-like.

Sunday was a day of a small hangover from the party we attended Saturday evening. At least I hope it was a hangover and not the beginnings of the flu that’s going around. I loaded up the schnauzer and we hit Home Depot for some more pin flags. We finished yesterday at point 2038 so I went back and raked up to that point and that’s where I started pin flagging. I got to 2051 and then went back and started lopping. There is a section around point 2041 that is full of small trees about 1″ in diameter. Trying to figure out a fun and easy way to get through that was beyond me today so I quit lopping and came back through with the ax and chopped out stumps. I was tired but my head had quit hurting. The schnauzer hurt his paw at some point so we called it a day and headed to the creek. All in all it was a block buster weekend with 15 hours on Saturday and 3 hours today for a killer 18 hours. If I could get two people out the next two weekends, we could finish up the short loop.

Another Half Mile of Rideable Trail

The Schnauzer and I made it up today. Yesterday I had things to do in the afternoon so I stayed in town and rode at the University. I haven’t ridden there in several months but it was just like always. The new trail maintenance efforts are starting to show. I hope it’s a long term effort because the trails need lots of work in places. I’ve been focusing all my trail work to Blackwater so I hope they are fine without me. Today I pretty much finished the trail to 2028 so that’s 2800 feet of trail that’s rideable. There are several holes to fill and a couple of big stumps to figure out. I also have two obstacles to work over. One is a fallen tree I want to ramp over. It’s about 18 inches off the ground and it’s still alive. I want to put a small table top over it. The other obstacle is the small erosion area that the trail crosses. I think a skinny across it would be cool with a small reroute for those that can’t ride it. So far it’s pretty rideable though. The Schnauzer checks it out by running it after I get a section finished. We also rode Phase 1 which is pretty nice. So that’s another 4 hours. Maybe next weekend I can get in two days.