calvin crest reroute and signage

This was the reason for the reroute.

Besides saving all that sawing, the reroute stays on higher ground at the bottom of the bluff, skipping the muddy areas and the higher plant growth. Had a mtb camp out there for middle schoolers last week and one of the sessions was putting in the reroute.

Also added some more orange tape at beginning kiosk and in the cedar trail where 3D archery has atv trails (wider, and fall line). Stay with the orange flags and the occassional arrows before and after intersections.

The knot of the orange tape is the side of the tree where the trail is.

teen serve working tranquility

Want to thank Teen Serve for helping with trailwork at Tranquility last Friday. The soaking rain the night before changed the tread work agenda to branch trimming and trash pickup in the Fort St Loop.

The trail corridor width is now from tree trunk to tree trunk.

Each of the workers got a THOR business card for working the trail and finding other trails.

Phyllis, the Teen Serve coordinator, appreciates the opportunity THOR provides for the teens to work on trails. She hopes we have work for them in the Fall too.

pipe bridges for north tp gullies

Eric donated 10" pvc pipe from his farm. We used 95' for two gully crossings.

Paul and Mike cutting the 5' lengths for the return route.

Chris and Eric working on the upper level.

Eric, Chris, Paul, and Mike on the finished product.

No endos and quick drying for this crossing now.

Dave brought his wheelbarrow to bring some drier dirt over the outbound gully pipe. I expect big rains to overflow these four pipes so take a peak after a heavy rain before bombing through this - the pipes may be bare.

Looking the way you cross outbound.

Fortunate to have a great work crew that lives within a few miles of the trail.Things went pretty quickly - about 10 hours of labor to install.

edit:
Mike is really quick at posting his pics and quips:
http://bikingfools.blogspot.com/2011/04/playing-in-mud.html

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.

treadwork done on north tp expansion

Nice cool day to finish the treadwork on the north Fort St expansion. We had 11 people plus Cody working 1.5 hrs for 16.5 total work hours. Thanks Mark, Dave, Chris, Bill, Paul, Brian, Greg + 2, and Steve.

We used Steve's blower to dress up the tread inside the trees. The first pic is just after the 180 at the southend of the treeline.

The next pic is the short grassland around a storm sewer drain in the middle of the treeline.

The final pic is in the grassland just before connecting to the wetland doubletrack.

This marks the end of construction. We still need to sign a couple places and install some pipe in the gulley for quick drying when we finally get rain. To get the entire doubletrack, ride to the right around the electrical tower just after the gulley north of the last ball diamond.

The doubletrack around the artificial wetland lakes was already there by illegal use of motorized vehicles, mostly 4x4s, quads, and motorcycles. Its a nice section to ride two or three abreast and talk. Watch for walkers and dogs too.

Thanks again to Melinda and Dennis at Omaha Parks for working with THOR and authorizing the expansion; and thanks to all the volunteers over last Fall and this Spring taking pride where they ride to help maintain and expand. Unfortunately, I didn't record all the non trailday hours put in by a few. I'm guessing about 125 hrs, Chris thought closer to 200, for the 3+ mile expansion. The use of Tigger (zero turn mower), Little Blue (sod cutter), and the established doubletrack made this possible in so few hours.

Enjoy the ride!

tp north starting to take shape

Great turnout for less than 24hrs notice. Thank you guys and gal for changing your plans so quickly to help bring the trail in north Tranquility Park closer to reality: Eric, Susan, Mike, Dave M., Dave N., Paul, Michael, Todd, Brian, and Chris.

I was with the sod cutting crew working the out and back trail along the Big Papio Creek between Fort St. and the the wetland doubletrack north of the baseball diamonds. Eric called in some markers for access to a great 16" sod cutter.

With 6 people in about 20 work hours, we cut a mile of sod and pulled it off to create the tread! I, for one, am still sore the next day.

On the westside, Paul took these pics clearing the dead branches in order to create the trail corridor. Those 5 got in about 15 work hours along with assorted scratches and at least one puncture.

For those who need more advanced planning, this Sunday, 03.27, starting at 13:00 will be another trailday at north Tranquility. This will involved finishing the westside trail corridor and raking the multiple inches of leaves off the tread.

tranquility north fort st trail is beta

Thanks to Aaron, Chris, Dale, Greg, and Paul, the out and back trail corridor along the Big Papio is cleared. Little tread work - though rideable, it's not necessarily enjoyable - consider it a beta release. Sod cutting the tread will wait for another workday, probably next Spring.

 
The trail circled in pink is what we worked on yesterday and today - about 20 hrs. About 20 hrs were spent on the ground walking, envisioning, and flagging prior to this weekend.
 
The trail circled in blue at the top is a double track going around a built wetlands in order to mitigate wetlands lost from the soccer fields south of Fort St and the new cement trail around Standing Bear Lake.
 
The trail on the west boundary will be worked on over the winter, weather permitting. This entails clearing deadfall and dead undercanopy in the trail corridor.
 
Greg brought out his stihl saw with color coordinated stihl chaps -- very professional, should have snapped a pic!
 
Chris putted around with his walk behind weedeater to clear parts of the tread along the trees down to the dirt.
 
I ended up putting about 8 hrs on Tigger. She worked hard making a preliminary pass through at 5" and a follow up cut at 3.5". The air cooling screen was plugged several times from all the cut grass thrown upwind. Though she has some minor groundings with the blades, the worst was running up over an unseen railroad tie when finishing up in the dark about 6 pm. Stopped the blades and stalled the engine - ouch! In 1 hour, Tigger does what use to take us about 4 hrs to push. Thus those 8 hrs this weekend saved us at least another 24 hours of mowing by hand.
 
Besides weedeating, clearing branches, and some hoe work, Aaron and Paul set bridges in place over the Fort St bridge erosion ruts.
 
I found out Friday at 1830 that Melinda, director of Omaha Parks, and Dennis, Park Planner had given us the "Notice to Proceed" with construction of the proposed trail. This time of year, there are few weekends amicable for trailwork.
 
I thank God for moving Melinda and Dennis to ok the proposal, for providing Chris, Paul, Greg, and Aaron to interact with the design and construction, and I'm grateful to God for giving me the desire, eyes, and hands to help paint a mtb trail on his canvas.

mowed north tp return route

Talked with Chris who was out doing some lopping. Decided not to rent sod cutter for tomorrow's trailday, we will just work on clearing and mowing the trail corridor on the Big Papio. Mowing the grass will allow the frost to melt more quickly next Spring when the sod cutter can be put to work.

This is looking south on the return route towards the Fort St bridge.

This is looking back up the return route towards the north baseball parking lot.

Though difficult to see, this is one of those half inch diameter scrub brush that has a 10' root starting back at the head of the rogue hoe.

very successful L&C trailday

No pics? We were too busy moving trees and dirt to take pics.
First timers Melonie, Craig showed from previous invitations while they were walking or riding L&C.
Brandon W. came out to ride but helped with Brian H. for the time they had available.
Steve D. saved the day bringing his saws. Very little would have been accomplished on the reconnector otherwise. His dog Cody was tracked over 7 miles while there.
Joshua S. and his dog ? added a little Kansas flavor to the mix.
Chris "earthmover" P. did his thing grubbing in the dirt.
Todd M. ran the saw to provide a corridor for tread grubbers behind.
Paul N. brought the beer, weedwacked, and sunk entrance trailmarkers with Chris.
I think there were one or two more but my mind is drawing a blank.

Afterwards Kyle (first timer at L&C), Scott N. (old timer at L&C), Todd, and I rode our work. I dubbed/fell 4 times on the 300 yard reconnector. The tread is soft in places and there are several steep ups to power through.

We also finished all of Supermodel, the final reroute of Neverest. I didn't expect to clean it my first time. It's not Neverest because there are short flats between short, steep switchbacks; but I like it better because its more sustainable, and it feels more like a twisty mtb climb than a straight up motorcycle climb. About a half mile of trail was added to the whole loop since the race in August.

We still need more signage and an updated gps map, old L&C map here.

Trail starts and ends behind the park entrance gate.
Follow sign down west trail.
At bottom, now go left instead of old right turn. The addition goes along the railroad track about 1000' before doubling back to near the new T intersection to continue the loop.
Go past the Neverest hard right turn and then right on Supermodel.

Enjoy the ride!

things learned on the CC inaugural ride

Great to see about 20 people come out to the inaugural ride! Riders hailed from Fremont, Valley, Wahoo, Lincoln, and Omaha. Seems everybody liked the new trail.

Two kiosks were installed Saturday by an Eagle Scout. These will have maps and other info shortly.

It's easy to miss the entrance to the singletrack.
To get to the singletrack from the parking lot, ride past the buildings and over the lawn along the bluff (currently flagged). The trail circles behind a cross and then turns right onto a trail and then takes a quick left onto the singletrack. If you are riding on a wide trail along the ridge, you missed the singletrack entrance.

The tread is compacting and it's getting easier to see. Orange tape is the primary markings, though there are silver arrows inside of different colored circles nailed to trees also. You should be riding on the knotted side of the orange tape.

The armored descent to the creek is very slippery.
Currently, the entrance to the armored (cement pieces put together jigsaw style) descent requires a right turn shortly after entering. Any speed will push you off towards the left into a rut, or worse, a tree. Until this entry is improved, please brake before the cement and roll onto it at slow speed.

Check the trail availability before driving out there.
Though written elsewhere, just a reminder to check the Calvin Crest MTB Trail page to see if the trail is available. Some customers have activities that will close the trail.

manawa work done - wed workday cancelled

Thanks to all who helped give manawa a hair cut and trim low branches. The crew, female and child included, put in 17 hours in two days to get our trails looking awesome.

No trailwork day needed Wednesday. Too muddy to ride now but Thursday should be about the right time!

Steve D.

L&C trailwork report from 4.17,18

Had 22 kids and 4 adults from Teen Serve out Friday morning - about 60hrs of work. They worked hard and were great to work with. Cleared trail corridor of brush, roots, and leaves - guessing about 400' of new trail corridor cut.

Below, this is on neverrest where the new downhill crosses.

This is new down trail at bottom of neverrest just before it connects with the current ridge trail that goes south to the 4 corners.

This is the new up trail from the four corners paralleling the ridge trail and dumping onto the ridge trail just before the left turn downhill and right turn onto neverrest.

On Saturday, another 35 hrs were put in.

Martin, Butch?, and Todd took the saws and 9 hrs of work to cleared out some difficult trees blocking the trail.

Paul, Vince, Dave, Brian, Todd, Corey, and myself benched the trails cleared by the Teen Serve group on Friday. Probably half the downhill trail is done.

Because there is so much trailwork to do on the THOR trails and not enough manpower, we will use the lower part of neverrest and cut in just the top two of five switchbacks for the uphill trail, saving the rest till later this Fall, hopefully.

The current neverrest trail is still 2 way traffic so be careful.