Trail Maintenance at Pisgah
- Thread starter sanjuro
- Start date
The last time we were there someone had done some really good work cleaning up Perry Cove and benching in some steep sections...They also dug drain ditches to get water off the trail but essentially they dug narrow, shallow water bars. They filled up and were flush with the ground in a weeks time. There was a similar build up on Bennett that was somewhat useless use of logs to re-route water. Those naturally back filled and are now flush again.
I am going to a trail seminar at the Cradle of Forestry May 7th conducted by Woody Keen...it will show case the "real" way to maintain a trail. Todd Brammer is usually digging in Brevard and maintaining trails there with small crews. He did a really, really good job of getting water off of Caney Bottom, which was notorious for being swampy even in dry weather.
I'll post the email info for all the trail maintenance in a second.
I am going to a trail seminar at the Cradle of Forestry May 7th conducted by Woody Keen...it will show case the "real" way to maintain a trail. Todd Brammer is usually digging in Brevard and maintaining trails there with small crews. He did a really, really good job of getting water off of Caney Bottom, which was notorious for being swampy even in dry weather.
I'll post the email info for all the trail maintenance in a second.
ings all,
I have been contracted by the US Forest Service to put on a series of workshops for Trail Crew Leaders and other volunteers doing trail work on the Pisgah District. The dates for the workshops are as follows:
May 7th- At the Cradle of Forestry from 9-5. This is an all day indoors session that includes:
-Intro to sustainable trails.
-Designing trails for sustainability.
-Enhancing the user experience.( The use of trail anchors, gateways, edges
and more to make trails more interesting and improve our human interaction
with the landscapes.)
-Trail construction (photo series showing hand build and machine build)
-Trail maintenance techniques
-Trail innovations(this is a popular slide show with photos from all over
many great trails in the US. This also covers some history of trails in the
US and the evolution of trails, how they are designed, built and used).
-And more.......
May 14th- 9-5 Field day learning proper trail maintenance techniques. Meet at the Black Mtn Trailhead just beside the Pisgah work center.
May 21- 9-5 More field work with hopefully some advanced techniques. Meet at the Black Mtn. Trailhead again.
For each of these you will need to bring food (lunch and snacks) and water. For the field workdays, you will also need the following: work clothes including long pants and good footwear, protective eyewear (normal riding sunglasses are fine), your bike helmet (the USFS is now requiring helmets for trailwork so bring your bike helmet), work gloves( full finger riding MTB gloves are fine) and of course a willingness to get dirty and make a positive difference in the trails you ride.
We need good participation from the mtn bike community and this is a great chance for us to earn the respect of the USFS and other trail crew volunteers working on the district. Building a trails community is important and this will certainly go a long way in that mission. If you are interested in attending, you have to let me know so we can get an accurate headcount for chairs during the classroom session and tools during the workdays.
My ultimate goal is to prevent any new waterbars from being placed on Pisgah trails. This of course will be a monumental task, getting the "old timers" to learn new tricks and give up the oh-so-cherished waterbar. These provide a known hazard for mtn bikers, are ugly as hell, and simply don't work for very long. We will be learning how to build good rolling grade dips instead which are self cleaning (if built well), look more natural in thier landscapes, and of course are easy to roll on a bike or become great booter jumps adding to the mountain bike experience.
If you are a crew leader, ever thought you would like to be a crew leader, are just a regular volunteer who wants to learn more, or just getting started and want to start off right ; then these workshops are for you. There is no cost to volunteer workers, my fees have been covered by the USFS.
Please shoot me an email if you have interest or want to learn more. Pisgah trails received an enormous amount of damage during the storms of last season. This is a great chance to learn how to do the right thing to repair some of that damage and help protect the important trail resources in our area. Please pass this info on to any you feel will be interested.
Woody
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mtb-trailwork-wnc/
I have been contracted by the US Forest Service to put on a series of workshops for Trail Crew Leaders and other volunteers doing trail work on the Pisgah District. The dates for the workshops are as follows:
May 7th- At the Cradle of Forestry from 9-5. This is an all day indoors session that includes:
-Intro to sustainable trails.
-Designing trails for sustainability.
-Enhancing the user experience.( The use of trail anchors, gateways, edges
and more to make trails more interesting and improve our human interaction
with the landscapes.)
-Trail construction (photo series showing hand build and machine build)
-Trail maintenance techniques
-Trail innovations(this is a popular slide show with photos from all over
many great trails in the US. This also covers some history of trails in the
US and the evolution of trails, how they are designed, built and used).
-And more.......
May 14th- 9-5 Field day learning proper trail maintenance techniques. Meet at the Black Mtn Trailhead just beside the Pisgah work center.
May 21- 9-5 More field work with hopefully some advanced techniques. Meet at the Black Mtn. Trailhead again.
For each of these you will need to bring food (lunch and snacks) and water. For the field workdays, you will also need the following: work clothes including long pants and good footwear, protective eyewear (normal riding sunglasses are fine), your bike helmet (the USFS is now requiring helmets for trailwork so bring your bike helmet), work gloves( full finger riding MTB gloves are fine) and of course a willingness to get dirty and make a positive difference in the trails you ride.
We need good participation from the mtn bike community and this is a great chance for us to earn the respect of the USFS and other trail crew volunteers working on the district. Building a trails community is important and this will certainly go a long way in that mission. If you are interested in attending, you have to let me know so we can get an accurate headcount for chairs during the classroom session and tools during the workdays.
My ultimate goal is to prevent any new waterbars from being placed on Pisgah trails. This of course will be a monumental task, getting the "old timers" to learn new tricks and give up the oh-so-cherished waterbar. These provide a known hazard for mtn bikers, are ugly as hell, and simply don't work for very long. We will be learning how to build good rolling grade dips instead which are self cleaning (if built well), look more natural in thier landscapes, and of course are easy to roll on a bike or become great booter jumps adding to the mountain bike experience.
If you are a crew leader, ever thought you would like to be a crew leader, are just a regular volunteer who wants to learn more, or just getting started and want to start off right ; then these workshops are for you. There is no cost to volunteer workers, my fees have been covered by the USFS.
Please shoot me an email if you have interest or want to learn more. Pisgah trails received an enormous amount of damage during the storms of last season. This is a great chance to learn how to do the right thing to repair some of that damage and help protect the important trail resources in our area. Please pass this info on to any you feel will be interested.
Woody
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mtb-trailwork-wnc/
I am going to Downieville (California) for trail maintenance. I am sure many of you have heard about the trails and the Downieville Classic, but I recently learned that all of them are on USFS land.
I am new to the area, but friends have started the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship (www.sierratrails.org). Please take a look.
I am new to the area, but friends have started the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship (www.sierratrails.org). Please take a look.
The primary thing with Pisgah is that everything is tight, rooty, technical singletrack. It creates a lot of issues in terms of user conflict. Confrontations with other users are usually in blind curves due to the dense greenery and rather sudden.
On a physical scale, the mountains here are much smaller than those out West and Pisgah and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are THE most visited park in the US, so traffic on all the trails is to say the least condensed in a smaller area than out west. There has never been an actual DH event in Pisgah that was approved by the Forest Service .
That may be for several reasons. It may be that the bike clubs aren't as well organized and as substantial contributors to the trail systems here as opposed to out West, which is my first guess. TO my knowledge the only cycling events that occur in Pisgah on a regular basis are "death marches" as I call them or all day endurance races, which in general have a fairly small turnout.
There is one large scale event by Todd Brammer that draws a large number of riders, but it is XC oriented, not DH.
In answer to your intended question, Trail days in Pisgah are growing in frequency, but had tapered off substantially at one point. In my mind, I think a combination of trail maintenance by the DH riders in the area AND very solid communication with rangers would have been a good preventative measure.
While Ben Wiggins intentions were no doubt good in organizing the Monkeyfest, I can't help but feel that had he actually notified the Rangers well in advance of running an organized group on a "tour" of the Forest, the ban may not have occured.
I am saying that asking permission would have made everything alright, but if you let the Forest Service know you are taking a sizable group of tourists into the forest on a given day, that it is a one time event, AND you are an established member of a trail care crew they know does work in their Forest, it is personal opinion that the end result would have been much different.
The Forest Service has no idea that the usage they saw during the Monkeyfest was a one time thing. They most likely view it as an escalating popularity of the trail for the sole use of Downhilling and that the large increase of cyclists was just due to the changing of the season and the increased activity that always comes in the Forest.
Does that answer the question better?
On a physical scale, the mountains here are much smaller than those out West and Pisgah and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are THE most visited park in the US, so traffic on all the trails is to say the least condensed in a smaller area than out west. There has never been an actual DH event in Pisgah that was approved by the Forest Service .
That may be for several reasons. It may be that the bike clubs aren't as well organized and as substantial contributors to the trail systems here as opposed to out West, which is my first guess. TO my knowledge the only cycling events that occur in Pisgah on a regular basis are "death marches" as I call them or all day endurance races, which in general have a fairly small turnout.
There is one large scale event by Todd Brammer that draws a large number of riders, but it is XC oriented, not DH.
In answer to your intended question, Trail days in Pisgah are growing in frequency, but had tapered off substantially at one point. In my mind, I think a combination of trail maintenance by the DH riders in the area AND very solid communication with rangers would have been a good preventative measure.
While Ben Wiggins intentions were no doubt good in organizing the Monkeyfest, I can't help but feel that had he actually notified the Rangers well in advance of running an organized group on a "tour" of the Forest, the ban may not have occured.
I am saying that asking permission would have made everything alright, but if you let the Forest Service know you are taking a sizable group of tourists into the forest on a given day, that it is a one time event, AND you are an established member of a trail care crew they know does work in their Forest, it is personal opinion that the end result would have been much different.
The Forest Service has no idea that the usage they saw during the Monkeyfest was a one time thing. They most likely view it as an escalating popularity of the trail for the sole use of Downhilling and that the large increase of cyclists was just due to the changing of the season and the increased activity that always comes in the Forest.
Does that answer the question better?
Ummm NObizutch said:
I do not see your logic at all. The large group ride was on Saturday in the North Mills area, on LEGAL trails, not the Ranger Station/Horse Stables area where the trail was shut down.
However we have come to understand that YOUR group actually got busted riding an Illegal trail, maybe that was the straw that broke the camels back?
i think maybe we need to work on getting some legal trails for dh use. As far as the closure goes, when was the actual date of the closure? I dont think (that i know of)that it was a result of the use that one day. But it might have been.bizutch said:
Furthermore i wish i didnt work most saturdays, i would love to do the trail building sessions/classes with woody and learn more about it.
Your point is crystal clear, man. Very well received.
But pointing out names ain't right. Saying this person or that person was directly or indirectly responsible is.....well, irresponsible. We owe it to ourselves as a cycling community, however loose it may be, to share in that blame. It's wrong to project blame like that. They weren't even on the trails that were closed. I agree with you on ecological viewpoints, but this personal blame-thing ain't cool. You're more responsible and more mature than that, my man and I know it. Someone that has put as much time into helping the SE racing scene as you have, I know you recognize that point, right? I'm sure you're frustrated with having this trail closed. I agree it sucks, but it's far from Mtb Rob or Biggins' fault by any stretch of the imagination. Let's not do this.....I don't want to see what was supposed to be a meeting of unification turn into something that eternally divides. That doesn't make any sense. Riders at the Shore have been battling this very issue for years. They solved it by staying the course, learning responsible techniques, and making good on the part of mountainbiking that gives back to the forest. Butch, you're doing the right thing with these trail construction days......that's what heals the wounds with all user groups. Obviously I can't tell you what to do, but I would think of it as a personal favor if you didn't drag these two guys into something that had nothing to do with what happened. It's all good----let's get along and fix this.
But pointing out names ain't right. Saying this person or that person was directly or indirectly responsible is.....well, irresponsible. We owe it to ourselves as a cycling community, however loose it may be, to share in that blame. It's wrong to project blame like that. They weren't even on the trails that were closed. I agree with you on ecological viewpoints, but this personal blame-thing ain't cool. You're more responsible and more mature than that, my man and I know it. Someone that has put as much time into helping the SE racing scene as you have, I know you recognize that point, right? I'm sure you're frustrated with having this trail closed. I agree it sucks, but it's far from Mtb Rob or Biggins' fault by any stretch of the imagination. Let's not do this.....I don't want to see what was supposed to be a meeting of unification turn into something that eternally divides. That doesn't make any sense. Riders at the Shore have been battling this very issue for years. They solved it by staying the course, learning responsible techniques, and making good on the part of mountainbiking that gives back to the forest. Butch, you're doing the right thing with these trail construction days......that's what heals the wounds with all user groups. Obviously I can't tell you what to do, but I would think of it as a personal favor if you didn't drag these two guys into something that had nothing to do with what happened. It's all good----let's get along and fix this.
Greyhound, I'm just trying to give examples of how things would be have better results with the Forest Service. Next time I'll insert the name of "John Doe" as an example to keep anybody's panties from weeping on their white hot pants... 
Rob,
I wasn't even in Pisgah or in this state. We were also in an area that listed itself as "No motorized vehicles". We had checked trail maps in the past and even contacted the controling interests of the land we were crossing. We bumped into some trail workers who told us where we were was foot traffic only. We offered to push our bikes through the small portion of trail that was foot traffic only to get to where the legal portion was but they reccomended against it and we turned back and went home to avoid any conflict.
Rob,
I wasn't even in Pisgah or in this state. We were also in an area that listed itself as "No motorized vehicles". We had checked trail maps in the past and even contacted the controling interests of the land we were crossing. We bumped into some trail workers who told us where we were was foot traffic only. We offered to push our bikes through the small portion of trail that was foot traffic only to get to where the legal portion was but they reccomended against it and we turned back and went home to avoid any conflict.
Well, I will bring this subject up to the stewardship and the USFS rangers, and see what they have to say.
I have only been going to D'ville for a half year (so I have not even shuttled it once yet), and every time we did trail maintenance. Even though I spent the day digging, I had a great time. To me this is a camping trip.
Now I am extremely curious about the timing on the creation of the stewardship. Was it due to pressure from the USFS or was it to prevent trail access issues.
I wrote this in a PM to Rob about creating a trail maintenance org. I though I should mention it to everyone:
I should point out the two big differences between D'ville and Pisgah: One, they are almost no hikers or whoreback riders because there are a zillion other places in Cali to hike/horse. Two, D'ville is a great opportunity for Cali bike companies, like WTB and Santa Cruz, to sponsor/advertise.
I know there is nothing you can do get rid of the non-bikers short of releasing Eric Rudoph, but I think some sort of partnership with a bike company will be extremely helpful. Hell, considering the first time I heard of Pisgah was a Litespeed bike model, American Bicycle Group should definitely donate some cash.
I have only been going to D'ville for a half year (so I have not even shuttled it once yet), and every time we did trail maintenance. Even though I spent the day digging, I had a great time. To me this is a camping trip.
Now I am extremely curious about the timing on the creation of the stewardship. Was it due to pressure from the USFS or was it to prevent trail access issues.
I wrote this in a PM to Rob about creating a trail maintenance org. I though I should mention it to everyone:
I should point out the two big differences between D'ville and Pisgah: One, they are almost no hikers or whoreback riders because there are a zillion other places in Cali to hike/horse. Two, D'ville is a great opportunity for Cali bike companies, like WTB and Santa Cruz, to sponsor/advertise.
I know there is nothing you can do get rid of the non-bikers short of releasing Eric Rudoph, but I think some sort of partnership with a bike company will be extremely helpful. Hell, considering the first time I heard of Pisgah was a Litespeed bike model, American Bicycle Group should definitely donate some cash.