I Did Some Trail Work Today

I snuck out of work yesterday and got in a couple hours trailwork on a local system. I'd done some drainage work before the storms last week and they all held up well, just some minor rain ruts rather than the carnage that would have ensued if left untouched.

Before the storms



After, just some small rain ruts



This bermed turn had finally started showing wear after 4 yrs and a rut had started down the trail tread after it. I touched it up and dug a drain at the bottom. It worked, and just a small rain rut across where the inslope reverses.



Another new drain I had installed. This one fared worst with multiple and larger rain ruts. But the drain worked. All of this would have gone down the middle of the trail another 50 feet without it. I may install a trench above the trail to consolidate the water into one flow, and then rock in where the water crosses the trail.



I touched up a few other sections and decided to work on this. The rut had gotten bad next to the rock and riders were starting to take the outside line, widening the trail.



I installed a drain at the top and another just above the rock, and then insloped the trail below it. Progress part way through...



Lookin back up



Most of the trail is now dialled. The lowest part is another story and has a stream running down the middle of the tread where it flows through a small ravine with nowhere to divert the water.

 

^^^^ that is beautiful work @evdog! The water crossed the tread and entered the drain at the least critical part of the turn. Insloping and berming CAN be good for drainage! Well done (clapping emoticon).

 

I agree with Herz. Outstanding workmanship on display!

 

Good stuff, Ev! Ain't trail work fun?

 

Today I went out and dealt with the lower part of the trail.

A simple water diversion got water off the trail where it exits the confined drainage.



A trench diverts it away from the trail and disperses it into a flat area below the trail, just like nature intended



In the confined drainage there is no way to divert the water. It will likely keep flowing for weeks yet, so trying to fix the trail would be futile. It doesn't carry water most of the year but does with every heavy rain. So I figured the best solution would be to re-route the trail above it. It now crosses the stream three times. Still not ideal but is the best tradeoff of minimizing disturbance and having sustainable trail. The original line has been blocked by brush.



The work went fast and all I had to do now was fix the last part above this, where the trail turns right and leaves the drainage. The plan was to move the stream over next to the big rock and then build up and bench the left side. The trail would then turn and cross perpendicular to the two ruts.



Seemed simple enough. But a few mins after cutting in the bench I walked back over it, and the tread liquefied on me! Turns out there were two massive seeps that had saturated the soil. It had been ok at first but soon became goo. I had to dig it all out and fill with rock. Check out the flow coming out of the slope! (not sure what happened, click on text "the two seeps...")



The two seeps partially rocked in



No "after" pic as it got dark as I was finishing. But it should be solid now.

I thought maybe I was just tired as I felt like a drunk walking down the hill. But when I got back to the truck I found out why!

 

Thanks guys! It sure is fun.... prefer building new over maintenance but that's not always an option

 

^^"Quit draggin' your fete, Pilgrim."

Ev, your drain in shot #2 is prettier than a lot of trails. I want to vacation on it!

 

More work before Friday rain...
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Only the Booges was able to limbo this tree until now... Cucamonga Wash with said peak in the background.

 

Thanks for your efforts (on behalf of those who ride there). I hope there's some rain to tamp down your work!

 

We've spent a lot of time lately fixing up trail at one of our local riding areas. This morning we finished the repairs and moved on to re-route a short connector trail that had turned into a stream bed after the big rains. It was quick work to flag it off and quick building, so we got the first third of it built in about 3 hours.

We used a few sections of the original trail that weren't carrying water and kept it narrow. The new parts are twisty-turny with a couple switchbacks, so it will be a lot more interesting than the original line straight up the drainage. That line had worked for years and was a game trail that got ridden in but if we get more rains it will need constant work.

 

Back out there today after a ride to check out some other trails I hadn't been on since the rains...

I got most of the re-route built, enough that it can be ridden now with less hike a bike than the stream channel/original line. It still needs work in a few places and a drainage channel that is still flowing needs to be rocked in where the trail crosses.





Crossing that remains

 

I went out this morning for a couple hours before work and built the crossing from the last pic above.

Was a bit foggy




Everything was pretty soaked, including my pants after doing some rock scavenging


Tried to get a pic of a couple big coyotes but got an Albino rainbow instead


The crossing half done


Sometimes the puzzle really comes together


Almost finished product. The trail needs more support in the near right hand side so I will add a column from the bottom, stacked inward to support it. Rides ok for now though. Planning to head back out tomorrow after work and finish it. Usable light til 6pm now!

 

Went out again tonight. We didn't get to finish the crossing above.

When I got there my friend was busy armoring a section at the start of the re-route. What had been solid before was now a swamp! I had dug a drainage trench to drain water away from the trail, but there are numerous seeps in the area. The only solution turned out to be to rock in a crossing with room for the water to drain around the rock. So that is what we worked on.

Finished product



This is what we are re-routing around. Old game trail up a drainage that people rode in over time. Since people started riding it a few years ago we have never had enough rain to saturate the ground. Turns out, when it is saturated, water does flow down here! The old trail, which is now the stream, will be blocked off. Hopefully people will stay off it and use the much more interesting re-route once things dry out.

 

So I went out again today and finished up our little re-route.

First order of business was to widen the rock bridge slightly. I added a column of rock on the outside to support a wider platform at the near right side corner. And I filled in the gap on the left side. It looks too wide now, but once the dirt washes off it will look better.



As I was finishing I noticed the dirt on both sides of the bridge was getting mushy. Uh oh... that means a seep from above. I decided to try digging a narrow trench on the upper side of the bench so the water will drain along the tread rather than across it. After a few mins water was doing just that. Once things dry out there won't be an issue the rest of the year so I decided to fill with more porous DG. You can see it in the pic above.

Narrow trenches


Water already flowing


Next I did some repairs to rutted sections of the original trail that we are using, and also some nips and tucks on the new tread. We are trying to keep it narrow, but widened some corners a bit where people need to go wide or where the back wheel tracks inside.

One of the worse sections, "before", rut partially filled with dirt


After... with optional rock roll to the side. Trail turns to the right at the next rock. Original line continues straight as a stream.


Last work for the day was to re-tamp the trail from start to finish. It is nicely packed now and can bake in the sun for a few days.

More rain next weekend! This is turning into the best trail work season in at least 6-7 years. Now if it would just stop raining on the weekends....

 

This is cool stuff Ev. You and your friend's work with a combination of hidden and rideable rocks is fine art!

Thanks for the work and photos. More inspiration to add to that of your bikepacking threads.

 

I would've rather ridden today, but received the photo of a big puddle on the Luge as I was trying to enjoy my egg and pork breakfast burrito. The puddle was near the top of the Luge on an area we're trying to keep from failing due to all the rain we've been having. I unloaded my work tools from the pickup and threw in "two" sets of trail work trails since my buddy said he'd meet me up there.

This is what it looked like after someone tried to drain it. It was still deep mush in the middle and had most riders dismounting to get past it. Unacceptable!


And here's a longer view. I'm not usually too concerned about puddles, but this one could cause the trail to fall into the growing gully that used to be the gap jump.


Anyway, here's my friend Josh after we filled the puddle, blocked the top of the gully, built a drain, sloped the trail back into it, and built an approach berm to tie it all together.

 

Good god that's nice work. Thanks a ton. That is now a work of art. I hope Brian's input was valuable, even if delivered initially as a complaint.

 

Brian was very cool and taught us something new about berms. He was disappointed about the gap jump failure, but that's completely understandable for riders who like launching it. I have friends who feel the same. The problem is trying to keep it when the gully has grown about 50% in size in the last two weeks and was undercutting the edge of the trail.

We got a bunch of compliments, and I hope to give it a test ride ASAP. Plus, I have a couple more ideas to improve that area from the straight V-ditch it was turning into. And as Josh was saying, "It'll knock a couple seconds off people's Strava times, so what's not to love?"

 

Very nice!

 

Everything will be fresh and exciting tomorrow!

 

Rather than wear out my Like clicker, I'll just tell y'all that I like your posts showing your excellent work. Bravo!

 

I missed the big rain last week so I went out Saturday to inspect the trails and again yesterday afternoon to do some cleanup work. The main trail I've worked on looked like it hadn't seen any rain at all except for a couple spots.

The top of the re-route we did a few weeks ago is a sloppy mess. Dirt is still saturated and underground water flow is everywhere. I tried digging a trench next to the trail to capture water before it hits the trail and drain it away, but it did not work. Probably means there are other flows coming in from the other side or from deeper. Water kept flowing down the rut in the trail even a couple hours later. Given a week of dry weather it may stop running and will probably be fine outside of rainy season, but an additional re-route to higher ground would be the only permanent solution. Question is, is it worth it for 5% or less of the time the trail is wet? And it would bypass all that work on our rock bridge. Hmm... if only I had unlimited time to build!



Underground streamflow



I moved on up and fixed the one part of the trail needing new work, a turn that eroded out in the rains. Riders were starting to ride inside the turn to avoid the holes. Before:



After. There was some seepage here too so I had to excavate out a channel and fill it with rock before covering with dirt. I also tried the same strategy of digging a channel along the inside of the berm and filling it with sand rather than native soil, to drain better.



Finally I moved up a little further and fixed a lower priority section that needed a drain, and filled a rut below it that was starting to grow.

 

I love this stuff! Thanks for walking us through your thought process/solutions. You've got some tough challenges out there.

The area looks familiar to me, any chance it's near Mt. Woodson?

 

It is south of Woodson a ways, an off the map area that may well turn into 3,000 homes in the future.

We had it good for a few years, with minimal rain we never had to do much maintenance before. This heavy rain season exposed a few weaknesses in the trails construction!

 

We moved a couple of rocks on the Mt Zion loop yesterday. The stuff ruined our flow so we sanitized it a little @Cisco Roots @scott

 

Fixed some damage on my backyard trail today.
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I did some trail work today.. in LCWP. Facundo asked me to help his Laguna Canyon Riders do some work on Stagecoach South near Nix center. I wanted to show my support for his kids and their club, so I met up with them and got to do some digging! Mike Hall supervised, but turned me loose on a little S-turn combo. The dirt was good under the surface and so I went after it. Facu and Pierro joined me after awhile and helped shape, pack it and fine-tune it. Mike Hall, Alan Kaufmann and Ranger Brad all seemed happy with the result, so it was a good day on the trail.

Thank you Facundo Malbran and the Laguna Canyon Riders for helping take care of our Laguna trails!

 

You got along with Mike? Did pigs fly too?

Very glad to hear about this, and thank you. I will also thank Facundo.