On Sunday, April 23rd, our chapter held its
first trail care event of the year. This first event was
held at Harold Parker State Forest in Andover, MA. We had
a very good turnout which allowed us to complete our work long
before the day's rain came rolling in.
Unfortunately, since we were all expecting a cold and rainy
afternoon, we decided to skip the usual post trail work lunch
and ride. Our group of fourteen volunteers performed some
significant maintenance to the Bear Pond Trail at the Four
Corners intersection.
Crouching,
Left to Right: Tom, Joe, & Reenie
Standing,
Left to Right: Jeff, James, Lee, Sandy, Fred, Steve, Frank,
Dan, & Jim
Missing from
Picture: Ron & Kirk
The work included a short but labor
intensive trail reroute, the installation of a new boardwalk,
and some routine drainage work in the vicinity. The
reroute involved a short section of trail that ran down the fall
line of a hill. This section of trail had started to erode
and would have continued to deteriorate over time. The
solution was simply to add a climbing turn to the trail. A
small berm was also incorporated into the trail in order to assist
riders with negotiation of the turn when going down hill.
The
new boardwalk spanned a seasonally muddy section of trail.
This short section of muddy trail was more of a nuisance than a
continually deteriorating situation. A simple, two plank
boardwalk was built to keep bikers and hikers out of the mud.
Harold Parker
State Forest:
Location and
enlarged area (not to scale) showing trail work
performed by North Shore NEMBA on April 23rd, 2006.
