Trails Update: Aug 27, 2021
Back to school (Sadface)
I mentioned signs of “summer’s end” last week, and there is no clearer sign than seeing the crew roster shrink: Camie and Matthias are going away to University next week. Dax will also return to class a week later. We’ll definitely miss your muscles and humour! I know that your trail building grit and initiative will also serve you well in academics.
Our final push with the full crew was to eliminate the hike-a-bike sections in Azrael. We benched in some reroutes and finished replacing the canyon bridges on Section 102. Surprise: the crazy teeter-totter also got a reno-design.
We’ve missed hanging out on the westside, so we spent a day working in the magical Sproatt creek zone. Pat designed some beautiful railings for the Industrial Waste bridge which now matches the blue rating of the rest of the trail.
The rest of us continued up through the massive Douglas Firs upgrading Baby Snakes. The narrow bench showed evidence of tires leaving the trail… into the creek waaaaayyyyy down below!
“Hey Benoit, can you build a rock wall to widen the tread from here to… (me walking along) ... here?”
“Sure” he said undaunted by the task at hand.
Darren and I started our “trailfit” (trademarked) program hard: feeding benoit rock after rock ...after rock. Benoit’s support wall ended up big enough to catch your eye from Pura Vida!
Trail history sidenote: Baby Snakes is another Frank Zappa song trail moniker.
“Late at night, is when they come out”...
“They make the best kind of pets”
“I’ll take all I can get”
“Baby Snakes!”
-Frank Zappa, 1979.
The steep upper section was originally a hike-a-bike part of Industrial Disease. We had to do some network re-arranging (and trail renaming) when Sproatt creek had a debris flow event that destroyed the original Industrial Disease creek crossing. We did not rebuild the crossing and rather than have two different unconnected trails called industrial disease, the hike section became the extended start to Baby Snakes and the slabby finish was renamed “High Industry”. Those can now both be accessed from the “Industrial Society” traverse. See the theme… that one used to connect HIGH Society to INDUSTRIAL Disease. Naming credits go to Craig Kozman (of High Society fame).
Back at work, the 30+ year old Disease section of trail had some imminently failing edge support beams that all needed upgrading. I fell right through one while inspecting it. Sketchy!
We took the opportunity to make sure modern handlebars would fit through the ever growing trees.
Back Forty racers can look forward to more course upgrades before the BIG day...
See you on the trails!
Dan Raymond
WORCA Lead Trail Builder
