Just 99 miles to go

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Wakefield Trail work 2/27

Song for the day. Nobody Rides For Free, Ratt 198?. (Time to pay up)

I like to get my work/obligations outta the way before I play. When I ride a trail, I feel obligated to give something back. Today I got my obligation to Wakefield outta the way for the year (ok, maybe till the end of summer anyway).

A huge restructuring to the trail system was to get started today. As I've only ridden Wakefield at night this was my first real look at the place. I could see why they needed to be redone. Alot of runs went straight up and down the hills, which caused alot of erosion. We benched cut straight across alot of these and closed them up. Something new to me they were doing here was taking the organic material we were getting from the benching and moving it to the trails that were getting closed off. It made the progress a little slower but I could see how it would work out better in closing off the old trails. This organic material looks to me to be premium soil. I would love to have this stuff in my yard.

In the morning I mostly manned a wheel barrel and was moving the organic material to some of the abandoned trails. This was made difficult by the mud. We were slip sliding all over the place. After lunch Scott Scudmore came up with a piece of equipment I've never seen before. A gas powered wheel barrel. It had 2 wheels up front which were powered by a gas engine, and 1 in the back which swiveled. We could load this thing up and it would climb right through the mud. It helped out alot.

I ended up staying there all day although my shovel was holding me up more in the afternoon shift than in the morning. By 4:30 I was ready to go home. I guess trail "karma" doesn't transfer over to road "karma". I'll be damned if the WW bridge wasnt backed up to the Eisenhower exchange.

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