We Came, We Saw, We Benched!

And fixed the mud wallow at the third stream crossing. We had a great turnout of Mountain Bikers from the area that included Paula Burton, Rob Goyda, Rich Stinchcomb, and Rich Coffey who came all the way from Stamford! We hit the trail and hiked up to the off camber climb/descent in the rerouted section of the trail. Found some discarded propane canisters which tells me a hunter has camped in this area (not allowed).

My plan for the morning activities was to bench this section of the trail, fix the mud wallow at the third stream crossing, and open up the go-around for the horses at the new up-and-over that the trail gnomes built. Not only were we able to do that, but we also benched the switch back section of the trail which lies between Via Roma and the Wet Spot. Not bad for three hours worth of work!

Here is what the mud wallow looked like before at the third stream crossing. Funny, I thought we would have this problem at the second stream crossing.

Rich is standing above our handy work. The nice thing is that we left the right side open for the horses to use because they prefer softer terrain.

Wish I had brought my hand truck because that first rock was heavy and it took Rich and I to carry it together with a few breaks from where we found it.

Here is the re-routed section that we benched. It's south of the new up-and-over I mentioned earlier.

Here is the whole crew after the work was done. It's amazing how much you can get done with a great group of people. I am going to ride through again next week and take some shots of the other spot we worked on.

Also, during the ride following the TM work we ran into Tom Ramsdell who came out to take out some the sharp rocks in the trail. He made some changes to the Wet Spot to make it more conducive to horse travel - which I now understand is necessary. I made some spot corrections so that it's still challenging but I need to go back and take a longer look at it and arrange some more of the rocks. Still, it was very ride-able.

More Rider Feedback

Somebody posted a comment on Crankfire.com about the trail that I thought I would share:

I took my Wife and Son to the Upper Paugussett to do a quick ride....we parked at the Echo Valley Lot. I applaud your efforts on this trail - and I agree someone has removed any technical aspects by building ramps for everything, they are fun to launch off of though.

The trail has nice flow and was a fun quick loop.

The problem is that i see that from the Echo Valley lot there are no markings or any hint on how to find the trail, we simply explored all the options until we found the trail which was fine with us, but if you want this trail to get ridden and worn in I would make it easier to find, if possible.

His last comment about easily getting to the trail from the lot got me thinking. The orientation of this trail is really to ride it from North to South, that is if you want a flowy ride. In order to get to that point, you have to ride up the forest road. Otherwise, if you want a good workout which is a series of climbs then the other direction is the way to go.

It seems however, if you are not sure where the trail is and you didn't bring a map, it will be hard to find. I think I need to put up a trail map at the Echo Valley Kiosk to orient people where the trail is and how to pick it up.

Trail Clearing!

I finally got this one section of the trail opened up. I clipped and Rob, who was riding with me today, threw the cuttings into the wood! I have been wanting to get this section for a couple of months now and I finally just did it. A few before and after pix, however they really don't do it justice. The pictures with Rob (above and last picture below) riding through show the opened part of the trail much better.

before

after