Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Trail Day

A big thanks to the hardy souls that made it out to a decidedly rainy trail day at Franklin Falls this past Sunday.  Since most of the existing trails were in excellent shape already, we didn't need to spend time cleaning up so we could focus on the fun stuff: trail building.  We started a new trail that when completed will be the longest trail CNHNEMBA has built there to date.  

Drowned Rats
The 9 member crew spent a wet 7 hours cutting, raking, digging, and compacting out the new trail and testing a new trail building method.  Instead of our usual technique of clipping and raking followed by a McCloud pulling off most of the organic 'duff' (very labor intensive), we just clipped and raked the new trail bed and then ran a plate compactor over it to harden things up.  Most of us didn't have a chance to ride it out yet, but we hope this will shorten up the 'bedding' in time for the trail and make it fun to ride right off the bat.

Sculpting
Compacted

Mike and Scott did an incredible job of laying out the trail and using every possible feature to make things fun.  We are hoping to finish things up over the next few weeks so we can officially open it to everyone.   I won't say exactly where it is just yet, but I suspect you'll find it and here's a hint:  the unofficial trail name is Sniper.

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