MTB Trailcare

We are still waiting to hear from QPWS about our next major project on Three Hills.  After clearing trailside dangers and doing some work where a bridge had been destroyed on March 3rd, we kept talking about the section of trail a little farther along.  

It was built as a reroute past some persistently boggy and eroded trail closer to a creek.  Very heavy rain fell continuously for months after the bypass was completed about 5 years ago.  Despite the trail being higher up the hill, one bit has always been a pain, remaining rutted or wet.  Today we continued drainage work started last week including renovating that area.

We were Happy with the result.  In multiple places over a 200m section, we were able to create effective drains by excavating stones that were originally used to armour the outer edge of the trail.  Over time cupping channeled more water along the trail and wheel erosion contributed by exposing more of the stones originally used to mark drainage points.  In the end the trail could only force more water flow onto the problem areas.  That's what we sorted today.

No pics, sorry.  To fix the wet area we started above it, where water begins to flow on the trail.  We think riders will now choose a new line out of a stony section of trail, past a new drain and then into the "wet" bit.  Even though it is dry as a bone and twice as hard to shape at the moment, without the changes it will get wet again in the future.  Imagine an insloped corner with drains coming off the inside line which has been dug lower than might normally be used for a singletrack.  You could call it a berm, but berms don't normally have drains part way along (unless via pipes).

So in summary we did a Happy 5 year service.  There's one more bit we want to fix next weekend.