Dig stoke, who else likes to play in the dirt???

[jackstraw]

^that looks fun!

Perspective is so hard with pics, but that is definitely steeper and bigger than it looks

[Andeh]

I picked up a battery powered, modular weedwhacker for clearing spring growth. Modular = can pop the front half of the pipe with the head off, makes it easier to stow in a pack. Man, so much nicer on the back than my hedge trimmer for trimming low grass / blackberries / poison oak. Counterpoint: it fucking vaporizes poison oak instead of just lopping it off. So I'm learning pretty quickly to dress like a gardener with hoody, glasses, and a Buff covering most of my face. Any little gap in coverage, weedwhacked poison oak will find. It goes through batteries at a decent clip too, the first day I used it I think I drained 2x 6aH and 1x 4aH batteries in a bit over an hour.

[jackstraw]

I would be scared to death at the thought of weedwhacking poison oak. I have a hedge trimmer that attaches to my weed whacker body, but the thing is kinda massive and not condusive to biking with

[evdog]

Had a great couple days trail work to reopen an old mining road. Once passable it will provide access to a 3k descent that is currently an up and back ride. Lots of deadfall to saw in an old burn area. Will post more when I get home.



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[jackstraw]

That looks like a ton of saw work. Also looks like a sanctioned build, so hopefully many hands helping

[TAFKALVS]

I’ve been really busy out in the woods. Got an active with my local trail org a few years ago, and due to currently very supportive leadership in our local area we are able to build some sanctioned black/double black trails.

We have a paid crew building the climbing trail and one of the descents.

I’m leading the crew building 2 of the tech trails.

The trail we’re building right now is a higher speed tech trail with a mixture of hand built berms and exits off rolls with sections of hand built trail that are left fast but rooty & rocky.



It all ends in a big granite slab. Like 200’ long slab. It’s cool.

So far we are about 30% complete, and making substantial progress each week. Mostly working on it on nights and weekends.

Here’s a few random pics as we build:






I’m not trying to self promote but given the circumstances with TGR, I’m posting more build pics here:

https://www.instagram.com/panhandle_loam/

(Edit: of course the fucking photo upload doesn’t work… [emoji22])

[toast2266]

^^^ pics not working, but I checked out the insta link. That looks rad! Is that in the Sandpoint area?

[jackstraw]

Tapatalk is the only way to load pics apparently

[TAFKALVS]

[emoji638][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]];[emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji638][emoji638][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji638][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji637]]^^^ pics not working, but I checked out the insta link. That looks rad! Is that in the Sandpoint area?

Yep! Right off the Schweitzer road. It’s crazy the caliber of riding that has been tucked away literally a few hundred feet from existing trails. But zero development, all the stuff we find for old school abandoned trails are just random poorly built wood ladder drops to flat, well away from the granite.

[evdog]

That looks like a ton of saw work. Also looks like a sanctioned build, so hopefully many hands helping

Yup, lots of saw work. This is in the burn scar of the 2009 Station Fire. Most of the dead trees still standing are oaks. They're heavy and tough to cut out, often with many branches. And always more of them falling down each time there are high winds.

The project is interesting. We have USFS permission, but apparently they said - "we don't know what you're up to, but go ahead". Lol. The trail we are accessing is an abandoned section of Pacific crest trail. It isn't a system trail but is still in the FS trail inventory. The mining road is similar. It's in inventory, but marked as closed. Apparently if it is still in inventory, it is possible to get approval to work on it. The local group I'm working with has a great relationship with the Angeles NF. They have completely restored several trails that were destroyed by fires.

Not so many hands helping (4 this day, about the same last year) but there were other events going on.

[jm2e]

Fack, all the work you guys are putting in is impressive. Makes the bandit loamers Mrs jm2e and I work on feel like small potatoes.
Too much tick, Yellowjacket, snake, ivy, humidity, jungle for us to do much more until the fall.


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[evdog]

If I could get away with scratching in and riding loamers I'd be all over that. No choice but to put in the work though when the hills are covered in thick brush and deadfall.

[ironhippy]

yeah but loamers don't stay loamy for long. Most of our man made trails start out as loam based but in 4/5 years (even with very little traffic) the loam erodes and you are riding roots and rocks, that is when the real work begins.

[TAFKALVS]

e;[emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji639]][emoji638][emoji638][emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]]][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji639]]Fack, all the work you guys are putting in is impressive. Makes the bandit loamers Mrs jm[emoji638]e and I work on feel like small potatoes.
Too much tick, Yellowjacket, snake, ivy, humidity, jungle for us to do much more until the fall.


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Who says we’re not also building loamers

[skaredshtles]

<snip> but in 4/5 years (even with very little traffic) the loam erodes and you are riding roots and rocks

Sounds PERFECT to me.

[Dantheman]

Decided I wanted to build a big drop this spring. Did some wandering around and found this spot.



Moved a lot of dirt into the landing zone and gave it a guinea pig. I measured it out and it's about 13' down to the knuckle. Maybe 15-16' to where you actually land. The landing is steep so it's pretty smooth.



Still needed to link the drop back into the trail. I had a few options, but decided to run it through these rocks and make another smaller drop.



Had to stack some rocks for the take off.



Dirt on the landing and a couple test hits. It works pretty well.



The whole line.


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Sick!

[evdog]

Yeah, nice work!

[evdog]

Brushing season is upon us. A bit late actually, but we learned from the last two years not to start too early or you might have to go back and brush it all again if everything grows back. Doesn&#39;t look like that&#39;s going to happen this year.

Some before and after-ish shots

Did some work on my own outside the park boundaries. The rangers have been brushing sections on their own as well, within the parks




Got a new string trimmer/brush saw combo with metal blade. It annhilated the pampas grass. I was stoked, my hedge trimmer won&#39;t cut that stuff so Ive had to cut it back manually with hedge shears.




Mustard is not done growing yet, so we trimmed it way back. It keeps getting taller then leans over the trail at face level.




Lots of poison oak this year too.



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[jackstraw]

Today was National trails day. I hadn't participated since I ran an event for it in the mid nineties. Great turn out at multiple locations. I was at one of the pump tracks for the groms. A lot of hedging was done as well as dirt work.

Recently some idiots had burned the lips out by smoking their Suron tires on them.

[evdog]

Went back up to LA this past weekend. After some scouting missions to assess trail conditions and access, Lowelifes got Forest Service permission to start working on Idlehour Trail in the Eaton Fire burn area. Thats pretty soon to get access but its going to be a big project to get it back into passable condition. We went in from the south end via Henninger Flats, a 5 mile ride with 2k gain to get in to the Idlehour trail camp where we would camp and work from. The first mile of trail down to the camp burned lightly so it was mostly passable. One crew worked on getting the trail camp cleaned up while the rest of us worked our way back up trail re-establishing the bench cut. Fun weekend with good people!


Packing in all the essentials




The bridge at the start of the trail burned. It has been temporarily been replaced with a 2x12 plank. Not sketchy at all haha.




Climbing wasnt done. There is a steep pitch to get up to the ridge top




From there much of the trail was rideable down to the trail camp




Time to get working. The San Gabriels have steep slopes that are always receiving material from above. The task for this trip was to re-establish bench cut wherever it was narrow.







Before and after




Done for the day




Still narrow but much better than it was

[evdog]

Time for a swim. There used to be nice pools right below camp but the stream got blown out here during winter storms. This little hole had to be built up.




Water was nice for a dip but could have been colder for the beverages




A big oak tree that used to shade the camp fell so the camp crew cleaned that up and moved the picnic tables under some other trees for shade.




Once the stove heated up it was time for tacos




Forgot a plate as usual, but this will do.




Hike/ride out after work on Sunday still has a couple tough spots. Trail completely washed out here




But the parts that we worked on were nice




Ignition point for Eaton fire was between this tower and the next. The wires between them were removed as part of the investigation.



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[toast2266]

Damn - that's some solid work.

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[jackstraw]

Damn - that's some solid work.

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Ya! Bench cut hell!

Looks like a good time and crew though... Modelo![emoji16]

[evdog]

Back to the local spot.

Now getting to some of the not so bad sections, which have gotten bad in the last couple weeks. Lots of thistle mixed in along trail in the first pic that you can&#39;t see.






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[evdog]

Ya! Bench cut hell!

I actually don&#39;t mind doing this sort of work. Much easier than cutting new bench. Much of what we&#39;re cutting back is just material that has sluffed downslope so it is pretty loose.

It can get tough in places where the outside of the tread has collapsed and you have to cut much father inward. Doesn&#39;t take long to get into rock.