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

[evdog]

More

Brushed out the jungle trail last night. First time using the brush saw in there. It worked great but it tends to splatter me with leaf debris. Not good when there is copiuous poison oak hidden among the other stuff. I tried to do a thorough job wiping off but we'll soon find out what I missed. I have huge patches of rash on one arm from similar work last week.










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[VTskibum]

Some crazy mad max type trail maintenance at my favorite local trail system. 2 wheel drive Rokon moto towing a very custom dual string trimmer system cutting back brush.




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[jackstraw]

Whoa! That's crazy!

[evdog]

Couldnt use that in my area. I mean, it would actually work great on the trails I've posted work from recently. But some idiot on a strava mission would undoubtedly try to pass and get eviscerated.

[jackstraw]

Yeah, the thought of doing that for the poison oak areas would be cool, but it wouldn't get low enough most likely because you'd burn thru string. Blade would be cool...until you hit rocks n shit [emoji16]

Where is that pic? VT?

[evdog]

No way would I use that thing where there is PO. String trimmers and brush saws fling bits of leaves and twigs at you and can even aerosolize the oils. Ask me how I know....

Hedge trimmer or manual cutting only for PO. Preferably after you nuke it from orbit.

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[VTskibum]

Birdsboro Preserve near Reading, PA

Not much PI/PO in this particular area, though more than enough at my closest trail system. Here it's mostly these dense ferns.

[jackstraw]

PA seems prime for good mtb trails.

I wonder if RaisingAZ is part of this -
https://www.singletracks.com/mtb-tra...n-space-lands/

[evdog]

I love the Dells! I rode there with friends including a local maybe 12-14 years ago. A few days after I got home I got a phone call out of the blue from Chris Hosking, the city trail manager asking if I had any suggestions on where to put more trails. I guess he had seen pics my friend posted and asked for my info. How often does something like that happen?

[evdog]

Did a bit more brushing today

Before and after

Doesnt look that necessary but there was lots of mustard along the trail which will keep growing bigger all summer, and plenty of PO hidden among the other brush trail side.

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[jackstraw]

I love the Dells! I rode there with friends including a local maybe 12-14 years ago. A few days after I got home I got a phone call out of the blue from Chris Hosking, the city trail manager asking if I had any suggestions on where to put more trails. I guess he had seen pics my friend posted and asked for my info. How often does something like that happen?

Ah, cool. I'm assuming the network has grown substantially since. AZ is a spot I need to ride

[evdog]

I last rode the Dells 5-6 years ago, and only because my truck broke down and had to be in the shop for 3 days during T-giving week. Dells was all I could ride to from the motel. There was a ton of new trail from when Id ridden there years ago. That over the hill gang is out there building new stuff constantly. And since it's all rock, they dont have to spend a ton of time on maintenance. If you like techy rock its the place to ride. And no crowds unlike Sedona.

[jackstraw]

Yeah, I love techy rock and that is one thing missing in SC. NH is full of it, but in a much different way than AZ.

[raisingarizona13]

I cant seem to quote the correct posts for replies but to what evdog said about cutting the po back with giant weed whackers... yup, those oils would be everywhere and airborne. I got it pretty bad a few years back working in an excavator in California when it was dry and windy. I never touched a thing and had red bumps all over my body.

[raisingarizona13]

@jackstraw - Come on out to AZ! Visit me in Kingman this next winter. We have a lot of things in the works and it's sort of the anti resort town scene with cool trails. Ive never done any work in Prescott but everything that they've done there is awesome. Follow kingman_mtb on instagram for updates and cool photos.

[evdog]

Trail day yesterday at Cuyamaca State Park

We have been working one a couple of the more neglected trails since last year. State Parks is probably our most difficult land manager to work with. The last park super shut down all volunteer trail work and events. A new one is now allowing it again. But we have to do it their way, which means 5-year brushing job rather than a quick pass through that would have made these two trails easily passable in about 3-4 trail days. Their plan was to brush the trail back with a park employee and an "official" volunteer running chainsaws and everyone else swamping. We got about 500ft of trail cleared on the first work day. Since then they relented and have allowed us to use our own brush saws which are far more efficient. Chain saw guys can then focus on bigger bushes that the brush saws can't easily cut. We got through about 0.4 miles yesterday.


We are into some lighter brush which is ideal for the brush saws. A couple of before pics






The brush saws really mow through this chapparal



Im not a fan of the circular blade though. The other two saws have a tri blade that just smashes brush apart moreso than cutting it. The circular blade has to cut at just the right angle which can be tough when branches lean at any sort of angle. And we want to cut then close to the ground as possible.




The other state park requirement is that all cuttings have to be hidden in stash holes completely out of sight of the trail. So we have to find gaps in the brush off trail and carry all the cuttings there. It adds a ton of work when you're doing a 5-year haircut




Finished product. It looks like a bad haircut for now






In a year it will look like this. By year 3 it will need brushing again. In about 5 years we will be back.




Trail day organizer Russ apparently didnt feel like working and "forgot" any appropriate footwear. He was relegated to guarding the beer cooler : )



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[evdog]

I will say the circular blade annihilates yucca. Which I can't say for any other tool Ive used. Quite impressive, actually



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[jackstraw]

@jackstraw - Come on out to AZ! Visit me in Kingman this next winter. We have a lot of things in the works and it's sort of the anti resort town scene with cool trails. Ive never done any work in Prescott but everything that they've done there is awesome. Follow kingman_mtb on instagram for updates and cool photos.

Right on! I sure would like to pull that off!

I thought I'd clear two blow downs and make a skinny out of the duck one. It was a task and a half just to get to this point. Two guys stopped and helped me get up onto the log and I had to flip it. When I did it bounced off and they had already left [emoji1751]. Leverage with another large stick got it back up over time. This tree is heavy af! I'm not sure how it will end as a rideable skinny, but the trail is clear now.

[jackstraw]

I "nerfed" the skinny quite a bit. It's more mental than actually difficult.

[evdog]

^^^ Cool! Do people ever mess with these side features you build?

[evdog]

Another trail day in Cuyamaca today. It was a bit warm out. We had two brush saws running and about 8 people swamping. Got about 0.4 miles done. There are 0.5 mile left until this trail is done.