BYOK MTB DAY 10/8

To celebrate National Bring a Kid Mountain Biking Day, THOR is hosting an event at Swanson Park on October 8. Bring your kids, their bikes and helmets and plan a few hours to play outdoors. FREE for everyone. No need to register. Just show up and have fun! (Parents will need to sign a waiver for kids under 18 years of age).

Then head over to the Bellevue Berry Farm where Lucky Bucket is throwing a fund raiser event for THOR and Activate Omaha. The LB Ride is a fund raiser and has a cover charge for adults. 

Here is the flyer for BYOK.

teen serve at swanson apr 15

Brought out 5 teens from the homeschool service organization "Teen Serve" to work in the cold 43 degree rain last Friday. Found ponchos for four of them, but most pants, shoes, and gloves were soaked after 2 hours in the steady rain.

We started clearing the whole trail corridor for getting back to the singletrack, but norrowed down to clearing the tread of brush and digging out the roots.

Thanks guys, for working in such conditions without complaining. You were honoring to the Lord that day.

Trail Conditions

Over the last couple days there have been trail condition updates on Facebook. Here's what has been reported:

Tranquility: Open
Swanson: Open
Lewis & Clark: Open
Lake Manawa: Open
Platte River: Too soft/muddy

Tread lightly. There may be soft spots in the trails. Rain is forecast for this evening - get your dirt fix in today!

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.

Tuesday Trail Day for July 14th Swanson/Tranquility

Hello everyone,

This time around the TTD is for Swanson and Tranquility on July 14th. Both trails are in need of a trim. Please meet at the trail head at 6pm for Tranquility and 5pm for Swanson. Work time is usually around 2 hours depending on the amount of people. If you show up after 6, just follow the sounds of weed eaters to locate the work crews. Long pants are suggested along with bug spray. Please rsvp in the comments if you can help out and tell us which trail you will be heading to.
We thank you for your time and efforts to keep our trail system in pristine shape!

For more information on upcoming trail days, Check out the Trail Day Calendar

Tree Down at Swanson

Large tree down blocking the way to the long staight away and last little rooty climb. Easily bypassed by making a right towards the creek crossing (and the new bridge) instead of going the normal route left.

Several other low hanging branches or trees squeezing the trail but overall rideable and getting better. Sticks galore all over the trail in some parts.

Trail Leader notified and has a plan to remove it within a day or two.

Swanson Trail Day for 26 April Off.

The Swanson Trail day for this Saturday (26 April) is off the calendar.

A tremendous out pouring of volunteer effort for the last couple weeks has fixed up most of the long winter damage and rerouted several sections that just aren't drying out anytime soon. Most of this just couldn't wait and folks were available for impromtu trail work, big thanks to all of them and their efforts.

Last weekend was huge for THOR supported MTB trails. Crews spent both Saturday and Sunday clearing out fallen trees and fixing up the trails at Platte River State Park. Most of the fallen logs were removed from L&C. And of course a big crew at Swanson.

A tremendous amount of work has gone into Tranquillity Park last week with many of the new corners adjusted for better flow and Doug benching in the new trail near the pine trees. Jewell has a new bridge and been cleaned up a bunch too.

We are estimating the next Swanson maintenance for sometime in June to start trimming up the eye poker sticks that will grow into the trail as Summer approaches and also some sections will probably need some weed wacking to keep the trails from overgrowing.

There is a non-THOR clean up event at Manawa trails on Saturday if you so inclined.

Swanson Safety Concerns Update

Recent comments on MTB Omaha highlighted a potential safety concern created by trail maintenance.

The problem was addressed this morning by raking off loose sand and gravel that was deposited on the left hand turn around the gully next to the creek. The areas were tamped down and flagged to provide some warning as well.

Too much materal may have been thrown in that area and didn't pack down well and sand and gravel was reported to be causing tire drift and potential slide out conditions. My unintentional mistake.

Please exercise caution in the gully area, all of Swanson Park is still soft and recovering from a long cold winter. Trails appear to be summer hard in many areas but this is only a crust over very damp dirt beneath.

Swanson Update 28 Mar 08

Rideable.

Still soft in areas so tread lightly when you see damp soil.

The area just before and just over the big bridge in the gully is very soft.

The most damp place is the far side of Tetanous Ridge on the new section cut in during November, please try to keep it down the middle and don't go much farther right. Need to keep the trail in one spot as much as possible.

Very warm today and some areas are actually dusty and need to be packed down.

Overall the trail is slow but will get better as the season drys it out and it packs down from all the freeze thaw cycles.

Horses have been in the main park area. If you see them politely remind them they are not allowed in the main park trails.

Paint ballers have vandalized the first new marker we put in. Shot the letters off the Trail Head marker

Swanson Park Trail Update 24 March 08

Currently Swanson Park trails should not be ridden. Please do not try even though your probably suffering from cabin fever like the rest of us. Many parts are still very very soft and extremely damp making the trail very subseptable to rutting damage...which a few inconsiderate folks have already started to do for us.

With the warming trend this week and good solid winds the trail "may" support riding this weekend if we get a reprieve from anymore moisture.

Riding the edges trying to avoid wet or soft areas leads to more erosion and widening of existing trails, enough areas are turning into double track now.