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Post by deano on Dec 11, 2015 22:21:10 GMT -5
Failed trail maintenance is funneling all the water straight down trail, making or nearly unrideable. I think it is the wording that may have ruffled a feather or two. I don't know exactly which section of trail you talking about, but I doubt it is "failed" maintenance vs design, people riding wet trails, and not enough volunteers to tackle the larger problem areas. As for the pile of gravel that you found, we had asked the UFSF for a dump truck's worth and ground cloth (so the gravel doesn't disappear into the muck), which they provided to us for future trail maintenance. I suggest that you contact Paul F. (I will PM his email address) to discuss any plans or potential usage of this gravel. Not enough volunteers will always be the biggest problem. Through my FB page for long cane I was hoping it would generate volunteers and I had a lot of interest and people step up during the growing season. FB has a been a great tool for posting trail conditions because of the amout of travel it gets. Seems like for the folks using Fats think they can only work on the trail during designated work days. The public needs to know as long as they sign the proper forms they don't need anyone's permission to lop limbs on their free time. We had some guys come down a few days ago and were blown away at the condition it's in.
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Post by brando on Dec 11, 2015 23:19:03 GMT -5
Cleaned a bunch of drains and puddles today on lower skinny. I never realized how many there are till I started stopping at each one. Took an axe for the trees but was glad to see them already gone. Thanks Mr. Murphy.
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Post by dsquaredmsquared on Dec 12, 2015 6:51:30 GMT -5
Took an axe for the trees... Get one of these and carry it with you. You will be amazed at how well it works on the trails. Corona Saw @lowes
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Post by brando on Dec 16, 2015 0:09:33 GMT -5
Kudos to whoever blew the leaves off parts of Brown Wave and cleaned up some drains. Rides great!
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Post by deano on Dec 16, 2015 18:18:13 GMT -5
Good to see someone taking the initiative, keep it up and surely your work force will increase, even if it's just 2-3 a lot can get done.
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Post by dsquaredmsquared on Dec 16, 2015 20:53:43 GMT -5
Good to see someone taking the initiative, keep it up and surely your work force will increase, even if it's just 2-3 a lot can get done. These are the same guys that do most of the impromptu, and often unrecognized, work on our trails. Collectively, this group had over 200 hours volunteered on our trails in 2015. Unfortunately, the few bearing the burden of trail maintenance (for the many) is not sustainable.
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Post by Angela on Dec 17, 2015 7:50:03 GMT -5
One of the biggest problems we continue to face is the fact that if you exclude the Long Cane Horse Trails (they have rallied a nice group of dedicated volunteers to keep that approximately 26 miles of trail maintained) and the Canal Trail (again there is a dedicated group that routinely jumps on problems on that 3+ miles of trail) SORBAcsra still has about 120 miles of trail to try to keep maintained. Unfortunately a lot of the same people who are trained to do tread work on trails are also the same ones who are certified sawyers and we have had a lot of trees go down this year (still quite a few down on some of our outlying trails).
Work on the dips to remove the berms and improve the grade if possible so they will drain properly takes time and experience to do correctly so that it will last (usually about a year). So many of these dips are on ground that will not allow the above solution hence the cloth and gravel previously mentioned. There are about 25 dips just on Skinny alone that need more than just routine maintenance and several long sections of trail that need more serious remediation.
A work party is currently being scheduled for January, the scope has not yet been determined but please watch for messages about the date on Facebook, Twitter, the forum and in the newsletter to sign up and come out to help.
We travel out of town to ride in other areas and when we ride another chapter's trail system that is say 30 miles long and that is the bulk of their local trails and the trails are in pristine condition I am a little jealous. Why? Because all of their volunteer resources can be totally focused on just that 30 miles. Do I wish we didn't have so many miles of trail, as a rider no, I love having the options we have locally but when I have my trail work volunteer hat on, sure would be nice to be able to concentrate all our volunteer efforts on those fewer miles. And quite frankly if we don't step up the maintenance on our outlying trails, that could very well happen (end up with fewer miles to maintain) but we need more volunteers to step up to help with that work.
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Post by Angela on Dec 18, 2015 7:31:57 GMT -5
Looks like we picked up over an inch of rain yesterday. This time of year with the cooler temps and foliage not absorbing water at a high rate, it will take AT LEAST 48 hours for the trails to dry out. Please do not ride the wet trails!
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Post by Angela on Dec 22, 2015 7:36:38 GMT -5
It looks like the current front will continue to push rain through our area but we are already up to nearly 2 inches overnight. Please do not ride the trails, it will be several days before things dry out! Thank you
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Post by Angela on Dec 22, 2015 23:07:59 GMT -5
FATS is officially CLOSED.
We've had excessive rain over the last 24 hours on top of previous rainfall, so the US Forest Service has enacted an official closure of FATS.
You can check our homepage, the USFS Call Before You Haul Hotline (803-561-4025), our Twitter Feed @fatsupdate, or our Facebook page for updates.
Please respect the official closure and thank you for your support.
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