Another view of the new Skinny

Made some adjustments today. Helps if you loop out a bit and I had to move the Tranny over.

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

More Ploppage

Don't recall if I had seen these last week or not. They do look like they were dropped while the horse was in motion so I will have to give the rider the benefit of the doubt. Now, if another rider came through and didn't get down from their horse to kick the crap off the trail, then shame on them! A shared use trail doesn't mean it's a communal toilet.

Trail Ploppage

The equestriennes are back after a long winter hiatus they seem to have found the Gussy Trail again. I had noticed hoof prints on the Brody a few times earlier this spring but they seemed to have stayed off the Gussy during the winter.

I am going to give the rider the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't know that Mr Ed was droping apples as they were getting along with the doggies, unless of course there was more than one horse. By the number of tracks in the trail I think there was only one.

Trail Blockage

Big tree went down blocking the trail at one of the up and overs a long the trail. Going to need a chainsaw to get through this one. If I can't get someone to help I might have to do it the old fashioned way.

It's Official - The Upper Gussy is on the State Map!

Jerry Milne from the State DEP Forestry division emailed me the link to Paugussett State Forest, Upper Block, with the new map showing all the recoginized trails in the forest. You will note that there seems to be a lot of emphasis on the fact that the blue trail is for hiking only.