Monday, August 31, 2009

water flowed over tranquility culvert

Walking through Tranquility and saw the cones at the Inner Loop culvert were down. Upon getting there I saw the culvert outlet had evidence of water flowing over the top.



Looking at the inlet, someone placed a piece of pavement over 1 of 3 6" pipes. This caused the water to back up and overflow during one or more of the downpours.



Hopefully having full capacity back and adding a small tributary to the inlet will keep the water from flowing over the outlet.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Prepare for Reroute at Swanson

Due to the land owners request to the City of Bellevue a portion of the trail north west of the fire station training area is going to be rerouted late summer/early fall. Basically the new trail as you round the corner of the fence is going to parallel the fence line until you get to the ditch jump affectionately known as "Fire House Air".

The land owner has tolerated runners, walkers, bikers and equestrians on their land for many years now and has notified city officials they want public use of their land to stop.

The new trail has to stay approximately 18 feet from the western side of the fence. This new trail has approximately been cut in by the Trail Leader Tom but the final tread location hasn't been flagged or cut in.

This change will cause significant heart ache amongst old and new users to Swanson because its really good trail we are losing. The best thing we can do is educate other users and comply with the land owners wishes.

More to follow on a trail day and the old section closing.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

New Signs @ TP

The new warning signs finally got finished up today. The city asked us to put these in due to riders not following the verbal requests to avoid the farmhouse and construction area. The construction area is between the entrance and exit of the inner loop. Basically between the 2 signs posted in the area. Please use the inner loop bypass instead of the gravel road, if you are not riding the inner loop. Also do not ride on the gravel road up to the farm house. Someone lives there and is frequently operating machinery around the barn. There have been some close calls and he doesn't want anyone to get hurt. The city parks people really enjoy having us out there and are just asking for a little help in keeping everyone safe.

Thanks!



Saturday, August 15, 2009

tp reroute for tennis expansion

The city is taking more dirt out for the tennis court expansion. It looks like they are sloping the west side down to court level, so this may be as far west as they go.
They took out about 50 yds of trail but still left the cut and wall rides further down the SouthHill Descent. Looks like those are on the outside edge - will ask if they can leave those since it's outside the court area.

So a short switchback was cut in to link up the trail. This turns left after a slight uphill to scrub off some speed and exit water off the trail. I like going right first and then cut across the old trail to round out the corner more.


After the ground dries, might be a little wall ride action available. But most likely that pile will be flattened on final grading. The trail will be right to the edge of the slope to the courts.


Finally, first vandalism of a sign at TP - camelback/ice loop split.


Misfits are also digging holes in the tread and putting in booby traps - dried out branches stuck in the evergreens and pointing out to the trail - and similar stuff, at the south end of the Ice Loop.

Keep your eyes open out there.

Tranquility Trail Crew

Friday, August 14, 2009

South Hill construction active again at Tranquility

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on Tranq. The city is active on the south hill again and have started removing some of the dirt piles we are using. The first dirt pile section is gone with a 10 ft drop off in it's place. I put up some flags to steer people away from the area but i think we will wait on cutting anything in till we know the plan for the area.

If the trucks/earth movers are working in the area, please give them plenty of space. Also, please be careful on the south hill descent. What was there one lap, might not be the next. If you enjoyed the dirt pile sections this summer, you might want to hit them soon. They may not be there next week.

Tranquility Trail Crew

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Loading the BOB


Dale and Paul loaded up the BOB for trail work at Lake Manawa.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

much accomplished tuesday at manawa

16.5 hrs across a handfull of workers accomplished a lot. Dale pulled two eaters, chainsaw, 3 loppers, gas and oil back to Tony's with mary and bob. Dave pasted directional stickers, Tom and Paul ran the weedeaters, Dale ran the saw on four down/low trees, Dickey was pulling limbs and lopping. Very humid and we worked too late to ride a lap but things looked good over what we did ride.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Tranquility is race ready!

Thank you to all that came out to the TTD to get Tranq ready for the race this weekend. The trail is in excellent shape due to your efforts. All together, we had 12 people out working the trail Tues night. A special thanks to Dave, Chris and Zoe for bringing their mantis out to work the bumps out of the re-route/bypass areas. Also thanks to Marc for big hours out mowing the south hill area solo.

I hope we can get a big turnout for Manawa trail days. Dickey is always helping at the other trail days and we owe him a few. Gather your troops and let's get Manawa whipped into shape!

Monday, August 3, 2009

Lake Manawa Trail Days

The scheduled August trail work is being extended to 2 evenings. We need good turnouts. Both evenings, meet 6pm in parking lot (congregate at the red pick-up or mower).

Planned work: Monday, Aug 10th-

Mow the trail
Trim the trail
Cut and remove any trees in the way
Lop branches
Install new stickers on markers
(Need 1 person to stay until the mower is finished to help return the mower).

Tuesday, Aug 11th-
Complete installation of new stickers on markers
Trim rest of the trail
More lopping
Any other tree cutting
Repair log crossing(s)
Rework habitually wet/muddy area

What to bring:
weed wackers
loppers
gloves
insect spray
long pants

THOR will provide cold drinks. Lots of works could be done. Tell your friends; help maintain the train.

Please RSVP in the comments for this posting.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Branched Oak Update

From one of the Trail Leaders,

Area 7 trail continues to grow and the upcoming race should be a 4.5 mile loop. Some of the new sections could use some riding to smooth things out. dont be afraid to ride after some rain, it dries really well and the rain will help smooth things out.

There is a tree down that we have to do something with (anyone good at making a real mellow log stack(it needs to be easy per park manager).

We have been having some trail gremlins tearing down tape and putting our brush piles across the trails.

Please be careful as some of the 4 legged users do not want to follow the directional flow.

Authors comment: WE DONE GUYS!!! 1.5 miles of trail with a very small work force is magnificent. The newer sections people aren't real pleased with right now will be pleased next year once the things groove in....it takes riding and racing. Keep up the great work!