Pond Brook with Water

Boat Ramp is back to normal

What happened to the water?

Looks like someone forgot to close the Shepaug Dam

Not sure I have ever seen it this low before but that's probably the original stream bed.

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.

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.

The Pond Brook Connector Trail

I rode the Upper Gussy later in the day and you can read more about what I did there in terms of more trail marking adjustments in the post Rode the 'Horse hard, put away wet in my ride blog.


Took my son Elliot down to Pond Brook this morning and met with Tom to look at alternatives for crossing the stream and doing something about bank that DEP has suggested remedied. The Blue Trail crossing on the map above, it's not entirely accurate on this map, it's actually further up the trail. The course of the stream is just representative, too, because the actual course is much more serpentine. The map above shows the entire trail and below is the detail of the crossing.

The red trail is my suggestion and the orange is Tom's alternative. There is no easy way to address this section but I think a bridge coming down from the top of the bank and spanning the stream is out of the question, if that is what DEP has in mind. I would prefer to armor the crossing and create a sloping climb up to the top of the knoll and connecting back into the existing trail.



Here is the existing trail as seen from the parking area along side Hanover Road.



And after the trail crosses the stream it climbs up the bank on the other side and it's just a big ugly scar that gets wider and wider. From this angle it doesn't like steep but it is.


This image overlays the existing route.

And this profile view gives a better impression on the steepness. It's probably somewhere between a 10 and 15% grade.

Looking straight on. You can see the rutting taking place.



Here is the first proposed route. It goes over the existing stream crossing which would be armored to prevent further erosion. It takes a more sweeping approach and sets up for a nice crossing.



The second proposal changes the stream crossing in order to make a switchback turn to climb the other side of the slope.

While I like the second proposal because it makes a shorter climb on the embankment trail users might make an alternative crossing of the stream at the instead of making the hairpin turn.