The Crew
January 10, 2016 was another extremely productive day for the Ken Burton Trail Restoration project. With recent storms, it was reassuring to see our of work holding up perfectly well. In fact, the restored sections of Ken Burton fared better than the Upper Brown Mountain fire road, which was rutted and much more rocky than before the storms.
Retaining wall crew at work – Photo by Matt Lay
Once again teaming up with the Mount Wilson Bicycling Association, 21 volunteers were able to do a first-pass cutting brush on 0.3 miles of trail, with tread restoration completed on 0.2 miles of that. Matt Lay, of MWBA led the effort to complete the first wire basket retaining wall. At our last day, the lower retaining wall was completed. The upper wall is almost complete, needing a few more hours of work. There are two more retaining wall sections that will need similar rebuilding.
We were blessed with perfect trailwork conditions. Rain was in the forecast for the night before our event, with most forecasts showing the weather tapering off by morning. That’s exactly what we had: nice damp soil, and cool, comfortable work conditions.
The day before the scheduled trailwork, I took a load of tools up via bob trailer, and did a walk-through video of the section we were to work on. After the trailwork day was completed, I repeated the video walk-through. The before and after videos show what an amazing transformation is possible. The two videos are embedded below.
We also have to thank Pat Phillips, a long-time trailwork volunteer and supporter who helped build the trail in the 90s. He graciously hosted us once again for lunch after the day’s work.
Mount Wilson Bicycling Association will be hosting the next trailwork day on Ken Burton this coming Sunday, January 17. and CORBA will host again on January 24 (both dates are weather-permitting). We all want to see this trail restored and opened!
Thanks once again to the tremendous volunteers for their hard work and dedication.
Ahead, brush. Behind, a trail.
Progress:
Progress! (Click for a larger view)
Start both videos about the same time, and see the transformation for yourself (hint: mute the before video). The videos are about 8 minutes long.
Before:
After:
Tags: Ken Burton Trail
