{"id":1283,"date":"2010-11-15T15:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T22:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2010-11-15T15:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T22:35:00","slug":"trail-maintenance-get-the-water-off-to-preserve-the-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/2010\/11\/15\/trail-maintenance-get-the-water-off-to-preserve-the-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Trail Maintenance: Get the Water Off to Preserve the Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This rut on the Wood Canyon Vista Trail doesn't look like much now, but left to itself, it will evenutally consume the entire trail!<\/p><\/div>\n

Running water is responsible for well over 90% of trail damage. Last winter we had a lot of rain that heavily damaged the Wood Canyon Vista Trail<\/a>\u00a0(and others), leaving it with deep ruts and loose rocks. The State Park maintenance staff fixed the ruts by running a SWECO (mini bulldozer) up the trail, and then new drainage channels were cut by CORBA and other volunteers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The number one trail maintenance objective is to get the water off the trail to keep new ruts from forming. During normal trail use, a ridge of dirt and rocks forms on the outside edge of the trail. This is called a berm and it keeps the water from running off the trail. We allow the water to drain off by constructing what are called ‘rolling dips’ or ‘grade dips.’ This is done by digging a depression in the trail, a few inches deep and sloped to the downhill side. We also cut out the berm so that water will be diverted off when it runs into the rolling dip. Downhill of this depression, we build a low\u00a0mound called a ramp, slanted about 30 to 45 degrees across the trail, to act as a dam, a barrier of last resort to keep water from running down the trail.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Riding over a newly constructed rolling dip.<\/p><\/div>\n

The shallow depression should be about three to five feet long and a few inches deep, and the downhill ramp should be two to four feet long and a few inches high. The transition from the depression to the downhill ramp shouldn’t be so steep that tires won’t roll over them easily either uphill or downhill. Our first concern is safety and we don’t want anyone to have difficulty riding over them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We purposely make the depression a little deeper than needed, and the\u00a0ramp a little higher. This is so the rolling dips don’t wear out too soon. We don’t want to have to rebuild them every few months! The\u00a0ramp becomes more packed down over time, and, especially when it’s new, mountain bike tires can cut into it and disperse the dirt. The shallow depression will slowly fill up with silt and eventually won’t channel the water off the trail. In fact, the rolling dips that were built last spring on this trail were already choked with silt from some recent rainy days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Running water is responsible for well over 90% of trail damage. Last winter we had a lot of rain that heavily damaged the Wood Canyon Vista Trail\u00a0(and others), leaving it with deep ruts and loose rocks. The State Park maintenance staff fixed the ruts by running a SWECO (mini bulldozer) up the trail, and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corbamtb.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}