A Volunteer Day...

Well, things have been going well as far as creating some fall work goes. I spent all day Monday working on catching up on a few things. Today though was volunteer work for PAS I met with the folks at the Forest Service and learned a few valuable lessons. I walked a bad flag line in Pisgah and transported a trailer up to Asheville. I got a small ride in at DuPont, but the wrist is still bothering me a bit, I will lay off the bike for a couple more days.

But, this afternoon I wanted to figure out the project for "Dirty Thursday" in August and I think the Pine Tree Trail in Bent Creek is in dire need of some love. Here are a few photos of the "blown up" sections. Some narrowing and root cutting will allow people to stay on line and may neutralize the trail a bit, but should keep things fun. Check-em' out. Tomorrow it is watching L'Alpe D'Huez and then heading to Barntown for some more work. Enjoy your Day.

End of a bad week, but should be a great weekend.

The Barntown project beat me into submission and taught a few hard lessons this week. The rental machine had been a bit on the fritz from hour one. It turns out the right track was WASTED. I left the machine sitting on the side of the mountain last night because I didn't have the right wrench to loosen the track adjustment, so today I had it and set the track back on. Miraculously it came off literally five minutes later....what the!. So I took the track off and low and behold the track was BROKEN. Looks like some other rental customer had run it with some type of object against the track, well the metal bars that the sprocket grabs had been pulled out. Rich Edwards of IMBA knows exactly what I am talking about.





The lesson? Check the tracks all the way around on ALL RENTALS from here out. Hopefully I will be able to get a bit of reimbursement for the time I lost.



This weekend it is CAMPING next to a creek and CHILLIN' I can't wait.

Bobcat MT52 Test Drive

The Bobcat MT52 vs. Barntown. Winner.....Barntown. Today was frustrating at best. I got some real time on a Bobcat MT52 for the first time. It is the only compact utility machine I haven't really been able to "field test". It certainly had it's pluses and minuses, but the ground clearance is atrocious. Check it out.



Overall I was disappointed, the ergonomics of the controls also was a bit unorthodox. It was similar to the TORO Dingo, but not as intuitive. The power of the engine sounded impressive, however it just didn't really deliver. Tomorrow is a new day and I will be interested to see how it performs in the simple task of lifting and carrying material and large rocks to build some alternate lines on one of the road beds in the trail system. More photos to come and hopefully none as disappointing as today's.

A little bit of maintenance...

What a great weekend. I needed an escape and to surround myself with a new atmosphere this weekend. I went into the weekend looking for something and it all fell into place so that I found it. Friday night was a wonderfully chill drive down to Dupont for a volunteer weekend with the Trail Dynamics boys, Upstate SORBA and PAS. Before coming down for the workday I asked Woody for the ability to JUST WORK. I didn't want to deal with people, I just wanted to sweat. I got my wish. I did a bunch of de-berming solo. It was everything I needed. I worked with a machine for a little while then came through and finished everything off by hand. The berm was great, we had a wonderful relationship all afternoon. Pack and dial...rinse and repeat.



Saturday night I was debating on what I wanted to do and through the day Saturday I became exhausted and decided the best choice would be to camp again and not make any trips. We swam we hung out at a water fall and ate good food. It was the best hanging out with new people and camping for the weekend. I will be doing a lot more of that in the near future. Camping is where it is at. Just me and mother nature. I really like her. Can you blame me? Look how beautiful she is.

"DT" and a busy weekend coming up..

It's been a busy week. I spent some time assessing the trails in Barntown, next week the concentration will be on that project. This week was a lot of computer time working on documents for a couple other projects and also getting things lined out for next week on the mountain. Yesterday was return to Green's Lick. We headed up with a small crew, about eight of us and put in a few heads up bumps at the top of the middle rock section to let people know what they were getting themselves into. Here is a photo of the work. The section looked pretty good, of course there are a few more issues, but nothing of major note.



We also were asked by the FS folks to look at putting a bridge in on Ledford Branch Trail where an old culvert washed out. This should be an interesting project in August. Probably two "Dirty Thusday"s worth.



Finally, in the rainy misty weather yesterday waiting for the crew to show, I played around in the creek and found this big monster, then on the road found this cool little monster. Life is good.

Return to Razor Mountain...

It is almost like having two years wrapped up in one. I started in Barntown and now that I feel I have had a mid season break I feel like I am starting there again. Here are a couple photos from the day.




Lately I have felt slothish, almost tapped of energy, but this past weekend, I finally feel like I got my foundation back under me. Hopefully, things will be able to settle in as the build season steps back in. I saw this little guy after the rainstorm and the image just seemed right.



Finally, Thanks Joe.

DT and the fourth of JULY...

Where has the year gone, I find myself half way through this year and it has certainly been quite the dance. Life goes up and down and as a friend of mine said, "look at the waves and try to catch a good one." Thanks for that.

Dirty Thursday was a blast this week. It was the perfect number of folks with just the right mix of attitudes, thanks to everyone that came out.