Jay Richards: Trail Work

This blog post should probably be titled trail play instead of trail work. Trail building is one of the things I like most doing at the Lag. It definitely is a lot of "work" but compared to some of the day to day activities, it's always good to be out in the woods doing something. I've always had plans to expand the mountain bike trail system and it always takes longer than expected, especially when hand building. The intentions are to crank out trail in the spring when conditions are ideal, no bugs, cool temps and no underbrush but always seems like something else comes up. Ends up being July when its one of the worst times to be in the woods with bugs, heat and humidity.

I started building a new loop last fall east on the Maplelag property, hand building for a few weeks than spent a week blazing with the bobcat. Ideally everything would be handbuilt but in order to finish everything within the next 3-4 years including a loop to the north, I have machine some of it. The new loop to the east near Bullhead will be around 3 miles and be a mix of classic handbuilt than machine blazed but hand tuned for the finishing touch. The underbrush in the woods around here grows back fast and within a year, other than the berms and features built, you can not tell a machine went through. Plus, when I machine build, it is different than typical machine build trail that is very predictable and monotonous. I make sure to only take fast regrowth trees like ironwoods and poplars and try to avoid at all times taking birch, maple and oaks that have harder time regenerating. Each spring we plant 3-5,000 seedlings to offset trail building.

There is also a lot of hand work involved, fine tuning the deck to make it more natural.

Jack and Jens have been good help when asked, and thankfully the deer fly season was short this year making it easier to get them out. If you don't know what deer fly season is, it is why winter, fall and spring are my favorite seasons, in that order.

Digging out rocks.

Final product.

Jens's friend Drew helping out one day.

Testing out the work. Rider approved.

Berm building the easy way. Hot days trail building best in the mornings or at dusk. Nice to have lights. How I spent my summer vacation.

When you spend 40 minutes getting to the work site than get this text. Knock on wood, there is yet to be a toilet that has been beyond my ability. #resortlife #runbyaresort

The soil on the new trail is really nice to work with. Might take a season or two to set up with more sand but reminds me when I was a kid playing in the dirt, building paths for the matchbox cars.

The plan is one day to link the new trail with existing trail to make a 20 mile loop and have a spring race on this course. 1 and 2 lap for early season marathon racing!

Being in the woods there are the bugs mentioned earlier and the dreaded deer tick. A summer hasn't gone by I haven't found a handful embedded. This year I didn't find one until after it had been stuck for a while. I didn't worry about it than got the classic bullseye and went in for a prescription. Two week cycle, seemed to have caught it.