Oh the SNOW

Not counting on there having been much of a workday today on the trails. I got a lot done at work though... The Man will be happy.

Really itchin to do some xc skiing. Got some other stuff that I need to attend to this afternoon, but you can bet I'll be up at the ass crack tomorrow looking for some snow to glide through.

Here's Wednesday's rendition of the little devil on my shoulder - "come on, no one will care if you disappear for a few hours - come on lets go jump in the snow!". Lily looks on in the background.

Saturday Corby Workday

For anyone interested in working to restore the Corby trails this weekend; Randy will be hosting a trail workday at Corby.

He is planning on starting on the Corby South trails at 8:30AM on Saturday.

Aaron has been working on the south side and made good progress. A new guy named Mike and I went out there tonight and made it through about half of the South loop. My recomendation is to start going backwards on the south side. If you start on the North side it doesn't matter where you start, it is a mess everywhere.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to help on Saturday as I will be working.

If I don't see you all before: Merry Christmas and Happy Trails!!!!!

Thanks for everyone's hard work!

Lansen

Scouting

Scouted some of the trails yesterday. Parked at corby south with the dogs, then skied up to the north side. Found the trails completely impassible by ski or bike. Then skied up the parkway to the Girlscout camp and checked out those trails. They are in pretty bad shape too, but don't seem to be as bad as corby. Didn't check on Krug. Skied back to corby south and started hiking them with a saw. Seemed like pretty easy going until I ran into Aaron and found out he had been cutting ahead of me. We worked together for a little while. Progress on clearing the trails is moderate, but there is a huge amount of down branches, limbs and trees. We didn't see any huge trees across the trail, but then again we only made it to the fire pit.

I'll be at corby south this afternoon some time with a hand saw. It's going take a lot of hours to get the trails rideable again.

Kind of a bummer this year for the trails. Between the floods this last spring and the ice storm this winter they have certainly taken their lumps. The good thing about this storm is that just about every branch and tree that could have come down in the next 5 years... did. So I guess that means once it's all clear again we don't have to maintain again for another 5 years. Heee Hee He, just joking - I'm just being delusional.

Hope all you folks have your power back by now. What a turd of a week for some folks here in St. Joe. I feel guilty to say I was one of the lucky ones this week.

Here's a picture of the bridge entrance to Corby North. Behind that tree leaning over the trail is just more of the same....

Ugggh.... Not Good

Hope everyone is okay, whether they have power or not. For the time being, I still do. Trees down everywhere in my neighborhood. Spent the morning cutting limbs off of a fence in my back yard. Neighbors took the brunt of the damage though. Also have some water in the basement.... Weird.

I shudder to think what the trails look like. Whatever you do, don't go out there until after the melt. It will be like a room full of mouse traps out there right now.

Good luck, stay safe, stay warm.

Snow and Progress

Crossed skis is no good.....

Well, you probably noticed there is snow on the ground... Just enough for skiing, barely. Went early Friday AM, enough melted Friday that skiing is no good till more falls. Maybe tomorrow, I hope. Corby North is pretty good skiing if there is at least 4". Less than that and it's no good.

Made some progress on the Girlscout camp today. Dave, Lance, Jim, Shawn, Adam, Tara, and I hit it for a couple hours. It was pretty cold up by the cemetary. We had a hard time figuring out a good line on the cemetary hill. We thought there was some danger of erosion with the line that was marked, so we had to figure out a new one. After that it started rolling pretty good until all three saws started having trouble. That was about noon or a little after, and I think most of us were toast anyway. I'm guessing that we knocked out between 1.5 and 2 miles today... but it's tough to tell.

Dave and Lance going to town on a helluva big fallen log - Dueling Chainsaws.....

Lance and I hiked what is left to do after we were done cutting. We were guessing that there is probably 2.5 or 3 miles to go still. Some of it will go very quickly, some will be a fight for every inch. Still don't know for sure, but it seems like the GS trail could pretty easily be 7 miles when finished.

Hey where did everyone go?

I mention trail work freezing temp and rain and there is no one on here blogging. I hope I didn't scare everyone off. Seriously we are going out to do trail work tomorrow morning. Lancen, Dave, Jason and myself plan to be there for chain saw work. Randy is deathly ill and won't be there ( like phumonia is an excuse). Remember More people building trail=more trail=more riding

Blown away

Thats what I've been doing for the last few mornings, blowing the trails. We have a good start on finishing the trails that were started Sat. It will take me about a week to finish trimming and blowing the leafs off the trail. Dave Crook spent four hours the other day going almost to the turn next to grave yard. Randy is going back and cutting nubs we missed over the next few days. Its raining on Sat. and there won't be any riding anyone up for more trail work????? I estimate it will take two more days like this last trail day to finish rough cutting the trail. So why sit at home and be warm and comfortable lets get out there and do it again.

U Animals

Sorry I didn't make it Saturday morning. My boy had bball games Saturday morning. Pretty impressed you guys made it a work day as crappy as the weather was. You guys are animals! I am now going to try to figure out how to posts pictures so I can share the trip this summer. Brian

Successful Trail Work Day

We converged on the Girlscout trails an tore it up for most of the day. Even though 35 degree rain poured down for most of the day, we made good progress considering the conditions. I don't think there was a person out there who wasn't soaked to the bone. and freezing. Personally, I discovered that "waterproof" is only waterproof to a point, after that "waterproof" is just like a baggie to hold the water nice and close to the skin. On the way home I picked up 5 McD's cheeseburgers and had them down the hatch by the time I hit my driveway (about 1 mile from my house), I was starving.

The rain did cause some problems with the chainsaws, and it definitely made weed whacking impossible. Not to mention the conditions slowed us down a little bit and wore everyone down quicker. Even still, we are thinking that we cleared around 3 miles of new trail on the upper section. Some of it was pretty easy going, other sections were a battle for every inch.

Would like to thank everyone who made it out all these awesome trails couldn't happen with out you guys. What an awesome group.

Randy, Dave, Rusty, Javier running the blades - I know it isn't easy, or cheap keeping up with thrown chains, oil, and gas.

Jason, Bob, Jim, Shawn clearing, grooming, and lugging tools around to keep the saws running.

Hope I didn't miss anyone - let me know if I did.

Also, a super thanks to everyone who has been working the trail outside of the trail work days. I know Shawn and Randy have put in a ton of hours. Jason and Adam have been out there too I'm pretty sure. Probably others too, sorry if I missed you.

Finally, I want to thank Shawn for marking all these trail routes. Yesterday I was telling Rusty that I thought you had a toy poodle or something that could get through the under brush to place some of those flags. It really is going to be a cool trail.

I had more pictures from the day, but I don't know if the memory was full, the phone was shorting out from being soaked all day, or what - but only one of the pictures saved. It's Dave standing in a down pour getting ready to attack a thickett of brambles and bushes.