MTB Trailcare

We are very close to completing Pete's and linking up the new sections.  Thanks to Kevin, Rudi (age 6), Peter, Steve, Shane and Ash who joined me (Louis) for a productive and wet day on the tools.  

We worked on a section of trail QPWS has issues with, due to exposed roots and erosion.  It is just above some old switchback turns that still have drainage issues to attend, but nothing serious

Extensive armouring in the past has not prevented water pooling here

Let's see what happened today - work started here

Steve dug a large rock from the trail and we used it as a corral feature, farther up the trail

This was the bit most disliked by QPWS.  

The section above required attention as well

To resolve the exposed roots and erosion, we constructed grade reversals up higher, salvaged debris, a log and a rock (plus the rock from farther down the trail) and closed the old trail line.  It was only 10m of change, but it had to be done well.  

First, we dug out lots of clumps of grass and saved them.

Starting from the top, here's how it turned out.  Sorry about the quality of the pics, but it was raining and had been for some time when they were taken.  It is hard to see the size of the rolling grade dips and drains and it all got pretty muddy and sticky at the end.  Depending on weather and the amount of rider use, we will probably have to re-stabilise features in the next week

We used dirt from the drains to cover roots and shape a climbing and descnding berm at the top

The new trail line is obvious in these pics, but the amount of rain and recent sculpting makes it hard to show the trail contours we built above the small diversion

The next pic shows a dip to high point to dip to high point

We filled the old trail line with soil, then planted all the grass clumps and then top-dressed them.  Other debris and the log were added over as well.  The corral rocks were moved a little more off the trail in the end to enable a safer line

 

More rolling grade drains were added farther down

At the bottom, some impacted stones were used to harden the surface.  This sort of work often needs further attention until it fully hardens

Looking back uptrail, it seems to be OK

Thanks again to our tailwork volunteers, especially Rudi who worked really hard, without a break or a snack and seemed to enjoy it .  Good on you Kevin for bringing him along.