Trail Work Update: 16 June 2017
[heading]Trail Work Update: 16 June 2017[/heading]This week the trail crew began our foray into "Making Comfortably Numb Great Again"... by making it harder, softer, higher, skinnier, wider and ...longer!
Longer and softer
Our Tuesday night dig, sponsored by Arbutus Routes was a beach party, literally. There was sand, so much sand. Jerome David (WORCA vice-president) thought I was too ambitious, planning to get 250m of trail built in one evening, and my response was: "We could build this section using tablespoons". The trail now starts closer to the Green river crossing, look for the new cedar bridge on your right. Less road, more singletrack!
Harder and wider
We fought back the vegetation that was threatening to reclaim the trail. We also upgraded a lot of the "spongy, wood supported, just ridden-in duff" sections to modern standards using rock walls, gravel and mineral soil. "Nothing beats rock" -Bart Simpson.
Higher and skinnier
The "swamp thing" bridge got longer with some more elevated thrills. You should stay dry if you can remember to breathe...Quick story about it:IKEA instructions always start with, 'Make sure all the parts are in the box before you start assembling'... This is important when adding a feature that will block the trail during assembly.
- Rocks for bases. Check.
- Cedar sleepers and stringers. Check.
- Split decking. Check.
- Box of 5"nails. Check.
With only a few hours left in our work week this conversation occurred:"Oops that extra box is actually 8 inch framing nails.""Uh oh.""How many 5 inch nails do we have left?""36. That only gets us 18 pieces of decking."I don't like to leave a half-done bridge in the middle of an open trail for the weekend."I have an idea, but it will be still be tight."We used exactly 36 nails (we'll double them up next week). See picture.Dan Raymond, WORCA Trail Builder[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="40" gal_title="Trail Work Update: 16 June 2017"]