[juice]

Come out and help us with trailwork at Tiger. Days are long so you can do trail work and still get a ride in afterwards. Everyone is welcome and you don't need to have experience, and you don't even need to be a BBTC member. Each Tiger Mountain work party is led by a trained and certified crew leader, and they're good at making it fun and rewarding.

Sign up by clicking one of the links:

• Sunday June 5
• Saturday June 17

You'll need a free BBTC web account to sign up, but it's quick and easy to create one. We have lots of trailwork parties in lots of places. See them all. We'll be posting a few more upcoming Colonnade trailwork events, so check back often.

See y'all out on the trails!

 

[juice]

Hey, I'd be curious to think what everyone thinks of some of the work we're doing on Preston and the NW Timber Trail.

This winter we spend a bunch of time fixing the blowout on the NW Timber and putting in this rock wall/drainaige.

We had hoped to do a lot of work on Preston, but kept getting snowed out. The crews now will be heading up and working on the year-round seeps and problem spots on the Preston. I personally think they're doing a good job of adding flow and adding challenge at the same time. The trail is a good place to work since there's no shortage of spots that need a lot of work.

 

[RhinofromWA]

Is that rock work all done manually?

That is alot of work.

 

[Skookum]

i had a pal ask me about Preston he felt that things had become a bit to sanitized and lacked flow. i went down last Friday and really couldn't tell what he was talking about, although i noticed a root drop seemed to be missing towards the bottom. Did that get filled in?

Beyond that i personally had no issues with it, i'm curious if instead of spending countless hours and money with some sections making reinforced rock culverts if it wouldn't be possible to make some 4 foot wide cedar plank bridges over the top, with 1 foot wide ramps to climb up on both sides on the right, and leave the a nice little rollable drop to be able to lauch off of on boths sides as well.

Would satisfy the technical and get off the clutter on at least one or more times on those sections that are just F'd all year from water run-off.

 

[juice]

Is that rock work all done manually?

Yeah, all manual using muscles, nets and rock bars. We cheated a bit and used power toters (tracked wheelbarrows) to bring the materials to the site. We used several tons of rock with about 6 yards of fill material behind it to rebuild the trail tread. I think that section will last for a long, long, long, long, long, long time.


Skooks - thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure about any root that was filled in. Generally, Brian and the crews are trying to keep the challenge up and not remove features. They'll be adding rock check dams to divert water off the trail and also add a little bit of jumpage to the trail.

The reason we're armoring the trail and not using bridgework is that this trail is open to horses (even though they're not there very often). Anything has to be engineered to horsey standards, so rock is the cheapest and longest lasting choice. Also, getting DNR to approve bridges might be a bit of a sell. Its a good idea though, and I'll mention it to Brian and see what he thinks.

One of the reason we're willing to put so much $$ into this trail is that we've got to prove our worthiness and have mucho credibility when it comes time to ask for new trails in new places.

 

[Skookum]

Anything has to be engineered to horsey standards.

i've seen the Backcountry Horsey Club build a bridge out at White River Trail by Greenwater using timber from blowdown. As a bridge i'm not speaking of a super elevated bridge with spaced runner boards, i'm talking about a bridge much like they already have over creeks. Only spanning over a few problem zones. The clearance for horses is such that we can have up to 2 feet easily from which to launch and the horses will have no problems. The 1 foot ramp will satisfy bike climbers and hikers, and we have a nice smooth section to roll since the trail has enough choppy sections from all that rock being put in, (as if with the roots it wasn't already choppy enough).

 

[juice]

I chatted with Brian about rock vs. bridges today. There are a couple reasons that we like to use rock.

• Rock lasts longer. Even treated fir will only last 20-30 years before it starts to fall apart. Rock done properly can last for 50 years, or even much more. It sometimes costs more in the short-term than puncheon (boardwalk), but costs a lot less if you factor in the ongoing maintenance that bridges require.
• Character of the trail: Tiger is a rocky, bumpy trail. Aesthetically there's a good argument to keeping new features fitting into the character of the trail.
• Bridges can get slick and slimy once the rough-cut grain gets worn down.

BBTC prides itself on doing damn fine trailwork and building trail that is more sustainable and lasts longer than the other trail building groups out there. This means using lots of rock, and we view ourselves as the premier rock-work trail builders out there.

Skookum, since you're at a lot of trail work parties you should chat with Brian on one of his work parties about these different ways to manage water. It's a fun discussion, especially since you already understand trail building.

If anyone wants to get more involved in trail work or has question like this you can also check us out at http://bbtc.org/trailwork/ or email Brian and the trained crew leaders at trailteam@bbtc.org.