Trail work updates, July 18-22, 2016

[heading]Trail work updates, July 18-22, 2016[/heading]

Alpine Sproatt Trail

We had a volunteer digger from Washington state for the whole week! Rob gets the award for best use of vacation time: Camping and pulling stumps. The rain stopped just in time for his shred down the mountain.After hearing of my drill battery woes last week, Pat from Sabre stepped-up, offering MORE POWER!!! (anyone remember "tool time"?). The Hilti monster-drill had way more stamina than we needed! We barely used one battery. I'm a fan now for sure!With 3 bridges framed, it was time for decking. Remember last week's update about alpine cedar? The RMOW crew who are building the ascent told us of a great stash of dead-fall red cedar on the Sproatt climbing trail (only 1.3km away... but 500m lower). We split the wood and stuck our electric thumb out for passing spaceships (or helicopters).Beggars can't be choosy about timing or weather when it comes heli-hitching. After a few longshot opportunities and 1 false start (damn April showers), the RMOW trails crew had us hitched (they were flying materials for work at the top of the Rainbow trail) to a 1000 lbs of wood and supplies are ready for weekend action![huge_it_gallery id="9"]

Trail Maintenance in Whistler Valley

This week in the valley we spent a short day working on Garagamel, we opened up a sustainable ride around for the last pitch before the swamp and are flagging the emergency exit.  It is marked with blue and pink flagging and goes from the big swamp crossing in the middle across a roadbed to the Cougar FSR at pullout #3.  We plan on going back in the Fall to cut back the roadbed once the brush saw is down from the Alpine Trail.  The remainder of the week we worked on the blue two way trail that is part of Industrial.  We got almost all the trail built from just above where Pura Vida meets Industrial all the way up to the Flank Trail.  We had some amazing help on Wednesday form the WORCA Youth program when they came out with two groups and did a fantastic job benching a large section of trail for us.  The trail will be opened up to the Flank by Monday afternoon and will be connected to the high point on Industrial by mid way through next week.  As this new trail beds in with riders using it this year you can expect it to be a little soft and slow to ride but we expect it to mature like a fine wine after the winter and things will get easier for uphill pedaling next year.  We will be tackling the bottom 1/3 of the trail in the Fall once we have taken care of a few other projects hopefully with your help on a trail night.