More Benching

Rob and I did some more benching on the southern section of the Gussy. We benched around the rock outcrop where the trail intersects with the Blue Trail.

There are few more places further in that I want to bench as well but the trail for the most part is complete. The last major project will be rerouting the trail up from Pond Brook. That could be a major undertaking but it will be worth while.

Trail Reroute

Rerouted a section of the Gussy Trail today. Didn't have my GPS so instead I made a little video walk through.

Trail Building: Sunday, October 12th

I am planning on another trail building day on the Gussy Trail. It will be on Sunday, October 12th, from 8 am to Noon. We'll meet at the Echo Valley lot.

Please dress appropriately, including sturdy boots or shoes, gloves and water.

Trail Building, Saturday, July 5th - Bring your bike!

Meet at the Echo Valley Lot, 7:30 AM. Want to get out early in order to beat the heat. If you can't make that time, just let me know when you will be coming and I will keep an eye/ear out for you. You can always call my cell (203-733-6240) when you get to the lot.

Don't forget to bring plenty of water, sturdy work boots, gloves, and bug repellent.

I would like to try and get a ride in afterwards, too, so don't forget your bike!

(Please note Albert's Hill is now open and no longer closed)

If you are coming late, click on the following map and print it off so you can find where we will be. To get where the work will be happening, take the blue trail from the Echo Valley lot, heading west until you hit the Upper Gussy Trail Right of Way (ROW) section. The blue trail crosses through two stone walls and the area between is the ROW, which is an old farm road. Turn right (north) and follow the trail till you run into me.

Work to be accomplished: (1) Bench the re-routed section of the trail that cuts across diagonally across a hill; (2) tile the third stream crossing; (3) create a separate horse crossing at Via Roma.

Sunday, May 4th Trail Building

Four mountain bikers showed up this morning. Matt, Ryan, Jeff and Wayne. Wayne and I have been going back and fourth on email and he said that he could get his riding buddies out for some trail work. I was hopping to see some more folks from NBLA, afterall many were saying that they couldn't do Saturdays, so here it was a Sunday yet no one showed up from their camp. At 9 AM I distributed tools and we headed out. We did work in two areas:

The New Stream Crossing - which is part of the re-routed section of the trail that I had been working on the past couple of weeks. While we were finishing up this section Tom (NBLA) and Rob (friend from work and a mountain biker) showed up. I had them go back and start prepping the Double Cross area.

The Double Cross - I call it because there are two stream crossings with 100 feet of one another. The northern most crossing turned became quite an engineering feet that started out with a little cribbing and turned into the construction of Hadrian's Wall. The other stream crossing started out with humble beginnings, too. We were going to armor the upstream portion of the crossing and make a quasi rock skinny on the down stream portion. After it was all said and done it now looks like a Roman Road, or in keeping with the Roman theme, Via Roma.

Three more people showed up while we working on the Double Cross. Cindy, Jim, and Nick. Nick found my blog and had been wondering when the next event was. His presence was a tremendous help and did an outstanding job on Via Roma. After we were done, around 12:15 we took a picture of the whole crew.

These crossings have been a major impedement of opening the trail and with their completion the trail is now completely open. Doesn't necessarilly mean that the trail is done, there is still quite a bit work in the benching department still needed to make this trail a sustainable trail. Trail building is not just about clearing, although that is important, it's really about building a path through the woods that can withstand the stress from different usergroups will put on it. That is why there is a lot of benching.

If you just cleared the path and let users continually trod/ride through, in places where there grades, you create streams when it rains which errode the treadway to the point where it will no longer be usuable and then you need to re-route the trail. That means more work. By benching these sections, you create a treadway that allows the rain to sheet off the trail to the side without getting any momentum to errode the trailway. Doing this also creates a harder surface that shed leaves easier, too.

Hope to see more people out for the trailbuilding. If we can keep this momentum up, the trail could easily be completed by fall. In fact, the next trail building day will be June 7th, for National Trails day. We will be meeting at the Pond Brook Boat Ramp off of Hanover Road. After the trail building session, there will be a BBQ provided by NBLA and CTNEMBA! Hope to see you there.

A perfect day for trail building!

Today's turn out was much less than expected, which was disappointing, yet we were still able to get quite a bit of benching done in the phase I section of the trail. Total turn out was six people, three from the mountain biking community and three from NBLA. The mountain bikers consisted of Paula Burton, Rich Coffey and myself. The NBLA participants were Cindy Miller, Dee Davis, and Robin Thomson.

The bugs weren't that bad this time around. I think what helped, at least for me, was to wear a wide brimmed hat covered in copious amounts of bug spray. I found this spray from CVS which smells like latex paint that seems to work pretty well. Also adding to the favorable buggy situation was the weather. It was a chilly 50 degrees this morning with a slight wind. Later towards noon, when it had warmed up even more, the bugs came out in full force.

Rich and I started working on the benching that I started last week and we were able to get it done in about an hour. During that time, a photographer for the Danbury Newstimes showed up and took some pictures of us working. Meanwhile, Paula and Dee were working on the opposite side of where we were also benching and clearing some of the downed trees across the trail.




Just as we finished that benching section a reporter from the Newstimes showed up. I escorted the reporter up and down the trail telling him about the history of the trail and it's intended use. He interviewed Robin, Cindy and Dee (shown below), and later Paula, too. It will be interesting to read how it comes out.

Afterwards we gathered for a group shot after wrapping things up. Despite the low turnout, we go a lot of work down. Rich bought his bike and was going to try doing a loop that including riding the forest road and the Upper Gussy Trail but I haven't heard back from him on whether he was able to find the end from the fire road or not.

To give you some perspective on what it looked liked before and after, here is what the new benched section of the trail, that starts after you make the dogleg turn off the ROW, looked like three months ago:

Here are the blow downs two months ago after Tom came through with his chainsaw.

This is what it looks like today - a trail! Might try to use some of the cut logs as a log ride along this section at a later date.

This is from the other direction.

Below is from the vantage point of just past where the tree was blocking the route.

The Upper Gussy is really starting to look like a trail!

April 26th, Trail Building, 9 am to 12 noon

On Saturday, April 26th, from 9 am to 12 noon I will be holding another Trail Building session. Please try to arrive around 8:30 to 8:45 to sign in.

If it's raining, then May 3rd is the next scheduled event.

If the lot is full, try to find a spot on Echo Valley Rd or Alberts Hill Rd.

Any questions, feel free to contact me.

Please ensure that you dress appropriately and wear boots or heavy duty shoes. Please bring work gloves, water and bug repellent.

If you arrive late and let's assume you park on Echo Valley Rd, the quickest way to where the work on the trail be happening is to walk up the driveway to the State Forest but at the yellow house, turn left and following the old road till it hits the State Forest boundary. That is the start of the ROW (Right of Way).

Directions to the parking lot at the end of Echo Valley Road:

From Exit 10 I-84
Turn Left if coming from the south/Turn right if coming from the north.Head west on US-6 [Church Hill Rd], for approximately 0.6 mi.
You will pass under a railroad bridge and when you see Starbucks on your left there will be a right turn onto the Boulevard.
Turn right onto the Boulevard and stay on this road for 1.3 mi.
When the road crosses under a highway bridge, it becomes Hanover Rd.
Take Hanover Rd for a half mile and Echo Valley Rd will be the first road on your right.
Turn onto Echo Valley Road and follow for 0.9 miles.
You will come up to a fork in the road and stay to the left. Continue for a few yards until the asphalt ends and a dirt road begins.
Do not turn left onto Sanford Road, there is a blue sign that says scenic road - that is the wrong direction.
Continue up the dirt road, passing a yellow house on your left and then a red barn and then you will come to the parking lot.

April 20th - Trail Building, Echo Valley Side

Forecast says rain right now for Sunday but look what happened last Saturday! Even if it's raining, there are still tons of things that can be done, like:

1. Raking the trail path!
2. Raking the trail path!
3. Raking the trail path!
4. Armoring the three stream beds
5. Dig out some stumps in the ROW
6. Raking the trail path!
   

If it's raining, come dressed appropriately. If it's not raining, then we'll do some benching, too!

Meet at the Echo Valley Lot at 7:30 am. Sunday.

April 5th - Actual

The weather wasn't really too sketchy afterall. It rained all day yesterday and was quite nice this morning. Tom and I met at 7:45 am and walked from the Echo Valley lot to the Old Tree that he cut part way through the other night. Along the way we did some trail clearing and some further re-routing in Area #2 on the above map. I think we also might have found a better crossing of the brook, further down where I had intended on crossing. It's alot flatter and ties in nicely with some other terrain features.

We got as far as the Old Tree and then had to turn back because it was quarter to nine. I ran ahead back to the parking lot to see if anyone showed up for the scheduled trail buidling day and there wasn't anybody. I did, however, run into a hiker by the name of Jeff Pritchart and asked if he was interested in helping out and he said sure. Jeff said that he is in the forest quite often before work hiking and had noticed the new trail.

Jeff and I went in via the Blue Blazed, then picked up the Gussy Trail and followed it towards Sanford Road but took a short cut down to the rock wall that I wanted to finish breaching at Area #3 on the map above. Tom was already there rolling a few rocks around.



Once we got it open, the difficult part began by trying to install a stable tread way. We used a few of the flat rocks from the wall and then filled in the gaps with soil. After a good rain, the water should wash off the soil on the rocks and we should have a nice tread way through the wall. Jeff is show below smoothing out the last area of dirt, while his dog, Peyton, checks out the rock wall. We found a live shotgun shell in the wall but very corroded.

Below is the finished product. To ensure users stick to the trail, we piled the excess rock and a few trees on one side to force them to around the bend.

Here is the breach from the other side.

Once you round the trees, the trail heads down a gentle slope that I originally had going through the two trees in the middle of picture below but after looking at thought it might be better to go around them so as to take the sharp left turn out and gives a more wavy feeling to the trail.

Jeff is pictured with his dog Peyton below. We finished the rock wall and started removing the duff off the future treadway. Jeff had to leave at this point.

We continued clearing duff in the opposite direction and pruned the hemlock that the trail goes under. One of the things you have to keep reminding yourself when building a multi-use trail such as this is that when you trim low hanging branches, you have to consider the rider atop a horse. In most cases, the horseback rider is already four to six fee up above the ground so you have prune up pretty high. Mountain bikers are much lower to the ground. Below is what the trail now looks like heading to the stonewall breach.

And here is what it now looks like from the opposite direction. I have to thank Paula again for coming back last Sunday and re-flagging some additional sections for benching. On the trail walk last month, Cindy thought it would be better to swing the trail out further when coming from the roller/intersection with the Blue Blaze trail. After looking at it again, I liked the changed and it's now a part of the trail.

This new curve in the trail can be seen on the map above as Area #4. Tom brought up an interesting point, that we should designate sections of the trails as phases so that when we have a trail building day and we can tell people where to look for us if someone were to show up a little late.

Case in point, Robin Thomson was an hour late, walked up the ROW and down the trail but turned around after some point. We found her walking back up the ROW while we were clearing out the section of trail we were working on. In the future, trail building days will be within specific locations or phases. So, you will see a new map with the trail broken into sections coming soon.

Above are Tom pruning up high and Robin clearing the cuttings. We wrapped up at 11:45.

April 5th Trail Building Day

On April 5th, from 9 am to 12 noon I will be holding another Trail Building session. Please let me know if you are coming by email or post a comment so I can get an idea for how many people are coming and how much swag I should bring.

If it's raining, then I will reschedule.

Please ensure that you dress appropriately and wear boots or heavy duty shoes. Please bring work gloves, water and bug repellent.

Directions to the parking lot at the end of Echo Valley Road:

From Exit 10 I-84
Turn Left if coming from the south/Turn right if coming from the north.Head west on US-6 [Church Hill Rd], for approximately 0.6 mi.
You will pass under a railroad bridge and when you see Starbucks on your left there will be a right turn onto the Boulevard.
Turn right onto the Boulevard and stay on this road for 1.3 mi.
When the road crosses under a highway bridge, it becomes Hanover Rd.
Take Hanover Rd for a half mile and Echo Valley Rd will be the first road on your right.
Turn onto Echo Valley Road and follow for 0.9 miles.
You will come up to a fork in the road and stay to the left. Continue for a few yards until the asphalt ends and a dirt road begins.
Do not turn left onto Sanford Road, there is a blue sign that says scenic road - that is the wrong direction.
Continue up the dirt road, passing a yellow house on your left and then a red barn and then you will come to the parking lot.

Trail Building

Formal Trail work has begun on the Upper Gussy! The map above shows everywhere that I walked playing trail boss. It's tough trying to manage a project of this scale without some means of portable communication. Next time, I am bringing radios.

In just two short hours the ROW got cleared, the trail now makes a clean dogleg through the stone wall just before the Tunnel Of Love, which is no longer accessible, blasts through a stone wall and heads in the Play Ground unobstructed. On the other end, the trail makes a nice transition off the ROW onto to the bank and then blasts through the "wet area." I cleaned up the pine tree about 30 yards from here.

(Robin Thomson and Robert Butterworth moving stuff in the ROW)

(John Wilkins and Chip McClellan working on the "Wet Area" crossing)

To get a perspective of what this area looked like before:

Granted it's from the other direction but can see the randomness in the rocks that would make this a pretty challenging rock garden, however, this is a multi-use trail and the route must be conducive to both equestriennes and bikers. We found some flat rocks to start lining the tread way but ran out of time. A couple more these and we'll have a cool little crossing.

Paula took charge of the benching on the initial climb up from the Jeep road off of Sanford Rd. Below is the initial climb.



Closer shot of the first climb.


Below is a shot of Glenn, CT NEMBA's Treasurer smoothing out the treadway.

This is Pete Coleman who drove all the way from Maine to attend this Trail Building session - that is hard core!

Pete is working on the benching going into the first climbing turn. Hope to crib this turn sometime in the future.

Below is Peter Westerholm, author of the iBike Blog. Didn't think he was going to make it but as I was making my rounds, I ran into him benching after the first climbing turn.

Paula and Donnie working on the big bench straight-a-way.

Not bad for two hours worth of work. The next trail building session will be Saturday, April 5th, from 9 AM till Noon. Hope to do more benching and finish the stonewall breach that was started a few weeks ago but never finished.

Trail Building Schedule

April 5th, 2008

April 26th, 2008

May 3rd, 2008

May 24th, 2008

June 7th, 2008 (National Trails Day)

Contact me at eatsleepfish@gmail.com for more information, and of course check back here for up to date information for each event.

Please address appropriately, bring gloves and water, and ensure that you have replant that includes Deet because these little buggers are out and about: Deer Tick

Trail Building Issues and concepts

(photo courtesy of www.singletrack.com)

This won't work at the Tunnel of Love (pictured below) but there are two places along the trail that it could be used, before the first stream crossing (main map) or Point F in the previous post.

Another good spot for this could be the downed pine tree at the other end of the trail. Of course we'll have to make complete cuts for the horses.