August 11th, 2012 - Trail Maintenance

Serengeti Swampland The swampy area in the old lake bed has been a disaster area for too long so we teamed up with the Town to fix it. A boardwalk (a.k.a. Environmental Decking) was the only logical solution. Long in the planning, the Town furnished the lumber and our volunteer efforts (local riders, TTC and FC NEMBA) put it together. Despite the brutal weather conditions that day (suffocating humidity and a midday monsoon), we built it! Being a wetlands area, it was imperative to not dig for footing but rather drop a bed of stones to "float the decking on." Thanks goes out to the DEEP and the Town for granting us special permission to use an ATV. This was a huge project and without the ATV and trailer, moving the amount of rocks and gravel required would have been impossible.

The Steps Taken
After laying down a bed of rocks, we poured on a layer of process gravel to create a level and smooth surface for the 6 x 6 footers. Part of the challenge was to cross a stream AND curve it slightly. Massive stones were brought in and laid down in over 8 inches of water to create the super solid (granite hard!) footing for the 6 x 6s. Due to this back-breaking yet important step taken, water can still flow freely here.

Professional carpenters Bill Lake and Dave Francefort (with help from the crew) carefully laid down the decking and trimmed it as needed for the curves. Care was taken to stagger the board lengths whereever possible to add additional stability to the structure.

Monsoon!
A torrent of rain came down on us for quite a while and conditions were ridiculously muddy (see photo) but the adrenaline was flowing too hard at this point to stop so work continued.

Once the deck was completed, another section nearby that was a huge puddle was "stone-floated and decked" as well. Meanwhile, even further back up the Trail, Tom Ebersold spent some time trimming back the overgrowth along the trail and then focused on clearing a path for consistent water flow (This whole section had been a nasty mess for some time...).

Reclamation
Finally, deadfall, trimmings from the overgrowth on the trail and grass seed were tossed on the surrounding damaged areas to assist in reclamation.

It was an exhausting day and many thanks to all the volunteers who showed up.

The environmental decking and reclamation here constitutes a major improvement for the park and was long overdue. (see before-after comparison) This is THE main trail through the park frequented by both hikers as well as bikers. Wetland damage has been stopped and casual hikers as well as adventurous mountain bikers can traverse this area worry free from now on.

The Area Before the Build (a week or so earlier)

Ecological Decking built 8-11-12

PS
We ran out of time (and energy) so three of the the ramp ups to the decks still need to be done. As an incentive to the good samaritan trail gnomes, a bucket was left near the rock piles. Dragging a few rocks and smoothing out the ramp ups with some gravel process (from the other pile) would be a welcome refinement...