From Blowdown to Skinny

A trail user that I ran into at Upper Paugussett State Forest last fall, Andre Artois, contacted me last week about helping out on the Gussy Trail. Turns out his father, Richard, is pretty handy with a chainsaw so we arranged to meet at Echo Valley at 8 AM to take care of the tree that was blown down and blocking the trail. A friend of mine that I work with and fellow Newtown resident Rob Goyda met us as well. From the Echo Valley lot, we hiked in on the blue trail to where it hits the Gussy and then went in from there.

We surveyed the area and decided that the old up and over would have to come out so Richard cut that old log in half and me cleared out the area. By rearranging this area, the Equestrienne users of the trail can now negotiate this section without having to dismount or for that matter go really slow because now it's completely open for them as well. Bikers have a clear shot coming up the trail and also three ways to descend through here, too. The first way is to roll off the rock near the stump, descend on dirt or as you will see further in this post roll an excellently crafted skinny.

Rich cut two sections of the tree off first, the broken end by the stump and then another four foot section that could be used at a later date as a nice up and over feature further down the trail (it would mean rolling it but it's pretty manageable).

The last section, which is about twenty feet long, was cut and positioned perfectly so that you could roll it as a skinny. Rich sliced off a section for the tranny that matched perfectly to an existing rock we had for a ramp.

Then he made perpendicular cuts so that we could chop out a treadway using hatchets. We braced it rocks on both sides so that it wouldn't roll and covered up a section near the top where the tip of a big rock protruded from the ground and if you were to fall off and hit that it would be nasty.

Did a little benching leading up to the tranny, basically removed the duff to get to the mineral soil so that it would be firmer as you lined up for the log ride.

Now every thing is nice and opened with three choices to ride, the roller, a pass through, and the skinny. We piled some rocks at the end of the skinny so that you could also roll it if hucking it isn't your style.

from left to right: Richard, Andre, Me, Rob

The finished product