Not the right way to block a trail

I ran into a neighbor on his quad yesterday while driving home from work and asked him where he rides that thing, of course the simple fact that he was riding it on the road was illegal, and he knew it, but when he said the State Forest, I had to go see for myself. I don't know where he was thinking but I couldn't see any signs of ATV usage in my area of the forest.

At the start of my ride, I headed down to the Pond Brook to check out the reroute and it's looking good. Figuring I would loop back on the new section of trail and the old section of trail I came across this trail block. While I appreciate the thought just putting logs that way probably won't deter a lot of people. If you want to block the trail you have to put a lot more brush down in order to get your point across that this section of the trail is closed. And what about the other end? Not sure if I mentioned this when I was doing the reroute but I left a spot open for people who might still use the old section.

We'll see if it holds.

It's done!

I finished working on the Pond Brook Connector reroute. I held CT NEMBA trail maintenance day and had four people from the chapter show up to help me finish the rerouting and we got it all done in two hours. We even planted shrubs taken from the new bypass/connection to restablish the hillside.

All that is needed on the Gussy at this point is a horse bypass that marked out with red tape a couple of weeks ago and a little more rock work there. I want to bench one more section, I need to blaze the trail, and lastly put in a Kiosk or two.

Trail Maintenance: 8/23

Work continues on the Pond Brook Connector for the Gussy Trail on Sunday, August 23rd. Need to finish benching the trail reroute, create a bike trail connector from the trail head to the start of the reroute and block the old trail (scar).

Meet at the entrance to the Pond Brook State Boat Ramp (park back in the grass from the driveway) . I will be parked in the little parking at the trail head.

Meet a 8:30 AM.

Bring your Bike!

CT NEMBA's Big Ride Series continues after the TM with a Tour de North Hanover. 10 to 15+ miles in North Newtown.

Pond Brook Connector Trail

Here is what I did today on the Pond Brook Connector Trail. First I layed it out with pin flags. Then I raked the path, cut branches that were sticking out and moved all the dead fall. I moved logs and downed trees on the outside of the switch back curve and then I stared benching. There was probably a inch or two of duff and then I was already at the mineral soil.

I started benching from the top of beginning of the switch back curve and stopped at the current trail.

Below is the switch back curve.

I made a little grade reversal and cut a drainage trench.

Where did all the crap go?

Did a quick spin on the Gussy this morning and besides noticing how nice the trail is another thing I noticed was that all those piles of horse poo were gone. When I rode through last weekend it looked like the Governor's Horse Guard went down the Gussy Trail. I hope it was an equestrienne that did the work because that means that are taking a more active interest in this trail, but if it wasn't then my helmet is off to whom ever did it.

Trail Work Day: August 9th

Sunday, August 9th

8:30 AM

Pond Brook Boat Ramp

Now that the main part of the trail is essentially complete it's time to fix the lower section of the Upper Gussy Trail. For those that use the trail from the other end of the forest, Echo Valley, you probably seldom ride the connector trail that leads from the Boat Ramp at Pond Brook to the Poly Brody Forest Road. One of the conditions for allowing the Upper Gussy Trail to go in was the inclusion of the connector trail and thus fixing the ugly scar along the stream bank that you see from the road. Below is an overview of the area.

The existing trail is in red and where it goes down the bank and the path it takes up the bank is in green. The orange line is where the trail will change into a benched desent.

As you can see, the existing route goes right up the fall line of the slope and the pictures below show you the ugliness of the scar that it creates.

I originally had to two proposals for tackling this problem. The first one was to go the opposite direction of the second proposal (below) but after looking at the rock sticking out of the bank, which is probably shelf, it seems going the other way will be much easier. The actual benching will be easy. The hard part will be finding a suitable Rock Store in which to armor the stream bed at the crossing.

Please ensure that you wear sturdy boots, bring water, and bug spray.

More Trail signs of the Gnomes

The Trail Gnomes beat me to it, they made a very nice up and over on the blow down on the upper part of the Gussy. Rides really well and hills in that little dip in the trail. Thanks guys, I owe you a few frosties!