Bradley Palmer / Willowdale Mill Trail Work - June 17, 2006
The chapter's 4th trail care event was originally scheduled for Bald Hill Reservation but heavy rains prior to the event put many trails under water and resulted in a slippery mess at the work site.  The project planned for Bald Hill was best left for another day during dryer conditions.  During our 3rd trail care event (click here for details) we built a new trail in Bradley Palmer State Park and on the adjoining ECGA property, Willowdale Mill Reservation.  It was decided that we would revisit this new trail for some fine tuning and to clean up some drainage features that we had added to other BP trails over the last couple of years.

We had a light turnout for our 4th event with only a handful of our regular trail volunteers showing up: Joe, Dan, Ron, Frank, & Kirk.  Maybe it was the last minute location change, maybe cleaning drainage features didn't sound enticing, or people are simply getting busy with summer approaching.  Regardless, it worked out in the end since the work load for the day was fairly light.

The new trail was included in the North Shore Classic race that was held just a week earlier on Sunday, June 11th.  The race was held just one week after the trail was constructed and heavy rain before the race turned the course into mud.  Fortunately, the new trail held up amazingly well to the heavy race traffic even though it wasn't compacted yet.  Most of the fine tuning was minor with only a couple of spots that required a fair amount of work.  One spot required a large drainage feature be added.  The second spot required a short reroute since it could not be drained properly.

The weather cooperated for our 4th trail event and we were able to bring our bikes for a ride afterwards.  Most of us had not yet had the opportunity to ride the new trail due to the heavy rain when we constructed the trail two weeks earlier.  Thus returning to Bradley Palmer for this event worked out nicely, giving many of us the chance to ride this trail for the first time.  Now that we've ridden it, we all agree that this is one incredible piece of single track.  It is approximately 6/10ths of a mile long and mostly downhill.  It is smooth and flows nicely with no rocks and just a few roots.  There really isn't another trail like it in the area.