My God! have we had great turnouts for recent trail clearing parties. I'm told that always happens when opening day draws near. I don't care the reason, just happy to see everyone's smiling face waiting at the gate to sweat like a pig and go home with wet feet. Don't know about you, but I am outta shape. Walking these trails swinging a chainsaw or weedwhacker takes a shitload of energy, and in short order I am breathing hard and wondering if I may die of a heart attack face down in a fern patch.
But hey, that's why its so great to see one or two youngins among the geriatric crowd that I am fast becoming a part of.
OK, so today's work party was about 15 people and our mission was to build and install two 30 foot long plank bridges over both forks of the creek in our riding area. In a change from times past, we are making an effort to be more environmentally friendly and this is taking the form of bridges over waterways that will be flowing year round in an attempt to keep down water turbidity.
The two bridges built today are 32 and 34 feet long. They bring our current bridge total to 6, with a combined total footage of 106 feet. The bridges built today are seasonal, able to be "easily" removed and put on high ground as riding season closes so that the creek can flood without taking our bridges with the deluge.
We had quite a few chiefs today (I must admit, I couldn't shut the hell up. I'm working on that), but they mostly worked together and got er done. We had a team working on the bridge supports, and another team working on fabrication. Everyone had some kind of specialty, and everyone chipped in to get these two massive bridges actually built in about 5 hours. I think we surprised ourselves with our productivity!
Here are photos from Bridge Number 1:
Here are some photos from Bridge Number 2
Thanks so much to everyone in the club for all the hard work you put in today and past weekends getting our trails ready for the 2020 season!