Loose end on a project i'm co-lead on. This was a loose end that i'm glad we can tie up. The whole course is all dirt we've groomed buff, so the intention is to have something different, a knuckleball if you will, right in the middle.
The ideal was to get the height of the rock relatively even, so it allows for riders and racers to not be slowed down excessively. But with the shape of the river rock, the variation makes for a nice bumpy cobblestone road effect we were looking for.
Next step will be to dress up the area aesthetically, looking to create a faux dry riverbed by using the extra rock above and below, and replanting with more fern and fauna around the edges. This will also discourage ride-arounds.
Skookum definitely sets a standard for building sustainable trail features. I think his rock garden is equivelent to a journeyman brick mason or tile guy!!
i've mentioned this before but since my trade is construction it really gives me an advantage on the learning curve. Roofing in particular i'm always dealing with managing water, as well as having to pay attention to detail in uniformity.
So most all projects in trail building transfer over. That being said i've done a ton of rock work in the last handful of years, i'm good at it, but man is it hard on the body...
The addict thing would be appropriate, but for not what you initially may suspect. i enjoy what i'm doing in some respects but the motivations transcend building really good trail. As far as big projects i have or will invest time into, there has to be a long-term nurture to the community. Otherwise to me it's just not worth the sacrifice.
i think i'll always be around doing trail work, but to the degree that some projects i've volunteered for, that's something i just see myself enduring currently.
Next step will be to dress up the area aesthetically, looking to create a faux dry riverbed by using the extra rock above and below, and replanting with more fern and fauna around the edges. This will also discourage ride-arounds.
Throwing up the final shot of the finished product. The vid doesn't show it. Had a work party and they all took ownership and really made everything snap. Looks like a professional landscape crew came in, but it's all volunteer powered.
So am i
A)Sniffing my finger
B)Playing Fleetwood Mac on my harmonica
C)Making cat calls to mt. bikers passing on nearby trail
D)Eating a pear
If you have dinosaurs on the trail, then you are going to have to armour the slopes leading down to the rocks. Those buggers tramp sticky mud everywhere
I spotted that, didn't say anything (too polite, you get embarrassed easily). Then I showed the picture to my lady (also a trail builder) and her 8 year old daughter (working on becoming a trail builder). They both mentioned that rock. You really need to fix that Skookum.
Definitely another candidate for "Is trail building an art form?"
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Building trails since 1964. Is there enough yet?
As a fellow trail builder/designer I go to great lengths to minimize impact to the environment,taking of live trees,plants or other growths etc.but by the nature of what we do it's inevitable that we do alter the environment in the end no matter how careful and well thought out.
I understand that at times foreign materials need to be brought in to help preserve the impact of our use of these trail systems,like bridges and armoring wet areas but to build a rock/cobblestone garden actually a stone paver garden.by your own words "even though it really wasn't that necessary" seams a tad overkill and alot of work too! bringing in foreign materials is just as a don't do as is disturbing natural terrain within reason to open a new trail,unless it totally makes sense and or is practical.
As a fellow trail builder/designer I go to great lengths to minimize impact to the environment,taking of live trees,plants or other growths etc.but by the nature of what we do it's inevitable that we do alter the environment in the end no matter how careful and well thought out.
I understand that at times foreign materials need to be brought in to help preserve the impact of our use of these trail systems,like bridges and armoring wet areas but to build a rock/cobblestone garden actually a stone paver garden.by your own words "even though it really wasn't that necessary" seams a tad overkill and alot of work too! bringing in foreign materials is just as a don't do as is disturbing natural terrain within reason to open a new trail,unless it totally makes sense and or is practical.
So you suggest the land manager should have created a baseball field here in it's stead, or maybe perhaps this could have been developed into a golf course.
Explain to me how this rock garden is detrimental to the environment, you won't because you can't. This environment which when building we dig out evidence of littered arrows of decades of club archery use, and old logging equipment when the forest was clearcut and razed not even a generation before.
Your criticism is not only unfounded because you lack the scope of the bigger picture. The land has been shifted and moved prior to such a massive scope from logging, but the local land has such the ability to recover it appears pristine. The park resides in small parcel of land bordered by houses on all but one side of the park. When the riders ride through they mostly often don't notice the huge church and houses even in the Fall when the leaves expose the sight path. The illusion intact.
It's beautiful in there where mature hardwoods are aged and dying giving way to growing stands of conifers. A place where new generations will have a fun race trail that will bring them towards developing a practical reasonable approach to stewardship and appreciating the environment.
i've been involved in enough Forest Service work parties within many types of forests that are way more pristine and untouched, bringing in what you call "foreign materials", to understand that you are just full of it.
haha... Why would you put some many rocks in the trail anyways? Seems like all I ever do is roll rocks OUT of the trail.
i know huh. You'd have to build here to understand i guess.
Actually i suppose i should reveal the reason. The entire course is entirely buffed loam. Just like a slalom course should be, smooth as a baby's bottom. The idea is to introduce just a tiny section of terrain that is different.
As you know, all trails in the PNW are rocky and rooted. The theme of the entire park was to capture flowy trails, like they have in Bend Oregon. So we capture 99% Bend with a dash of Moab to spice it up.
As a fellow trail builder/designer I go to great lengths to minimize impact to the environment,taking of live trees,plants or other growths etc.but by the nature of what we do it's inevitable that we do alter the environment in the end no matter how careful and well thought out.
I understand that at times foreign materials need to be brought in to help preserve the impact of our use of these trail systems,like bridges and armoring wet areas but to build a rock/cobblestone garden actually a stone paver garden.by your own words "even though it really wasn't that necessary" seams a tad overkill and alot of work too! bringing in foreign materials is just as a don't do as is disturbing natural terrain within reason to open a new trail,unless it totally makes sense and or is practical.
Get off your high horse...
How is a bunch of rocks in the woods foreign materials? Its not like he built a Ferris Wheel in the middle of the trail.
Anyways...nice work. I dont really think the feature is much more difficult than the prepped loam though. When we build a feature like that we do an A/B line. The A line is usually quite techy.
If the rock is local to the area cool,but screenings are not,and if your going to spend the time building a "rock garden" why build a gentrified version of one, it's all but moot to build one that has no real challenge to it.it's your time and I applaud the effort but really all that effort for several seconds of bumpy! but then again maybe you just don't know what a true rock garden should consist of if you don't have natural ones to mimic,and then of course I apologize for riding my high horse!
If the rock is local to the area cool,but screenings are not,and if your going to spend the time building a "rock garden" why build a gentrified version of one, it's all but moot to build one that has no real challenge to it.it's your time and I applaud the effort but really all that effort for several seconds of bumpy! but then again maybe you just don't know what a true rock garden should consist of if you don't have natural ones to mimic,and then of course I apologize for riding my high horse!
Look, in most scenarios you're correct, and rock gardens are not going to be built just to have a rock garden. For a myriad of reason.
Honestly you are likely to not see this replicated. If you're ever in the neighborhood, look for the trail, after you ride the completed version, you will come around having better understood it.
But then again you probably will be getting passed by riders under the age of 12 that are so much better skilled than you on this gentrified trail.
Oh and the screenings were brought in by the land manager, but i used mostly mineral soil to seat the rock, as is evidenced in the time lapse and the brown stains on the rock. The only reason i added a little gravel to seat is to provide stability from the rain. Wet mineral equals slop, prevents me from having to harvest more later.
If the rock is local to the area cool,but screenings are not,and if your going to spend the time building a "rock garden" why build a gentrified version of one, it's all but moot to build one that has no real challenge to it.it's your time and I applaud the effort but really all that effort for several seconds of bumpy! but then again maybe you just don't know what a true rock garden should consist of if you don't have natural ones to mimic,and then of course I apologize for riding my high horse!
Tech,
Before you start bashing this guy just look up his posts and look at what this whole project has entailed. It has required a massive amount of work, not to mention a fair bit of ingenuity to make everything jive.
The simple fact is you're not there to see what the whole situation is, so why try to invalidate his reasoning behind Plan X or Plan Y? By all means we should ask why a person did something, but you are coming across as agressive and egotistical; neither of these traits are useful.
As someone else said, he builds it this way because he can. There are others here (myself included) who have put features into a trail that on a computer screen make no sense at all but are totally awesome once you rip through them on a bike. If you don't think it is built correctly then go outside and dig a trail the proper way (the way you like it) instead of trying to belittle someone's efforts.
Oh yea, when your ranting you should prolly use good grammar and capitalization and stuff. it makes you seem less like a grumpyhead and more like someone that knows what their talking about.
Also, arguing on the internet is like winning the special olympics. Even if you win, you're still a retard.
While I agree this is barely a beginner feature, it's nicely executed and deserve credits. You don't like? Return to your super-extreme overly-steep über-advanced North Shore (tm) trails and go for a ride, or better yet, show us some nice rock garden you build!
Back on topic. Nice job Skooke. I wish we had a Bend-style trail around here. Everything is rooty/rocky so I understand the need to add some "feature" to a too-flowy trail.
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Jérôme Pelland
Sentiers Boréals Inc. president
PTBA | IMBA | ADSVMQ member
Actually we're slated to get a Blue Intermediate level when it's all said and done.
Kind of a long explanation on how that came to be, but we all believe that we're creating a trail for everyone including beginners. So really we really couldn't care what rating we are given.
But the rating system adopted is interesting in that they split difficulty ratings between XC trails and Freeride trails. XC trails are interpreted as trails where wheels are meant to stay primarily on the ground, and Freeride off the ground... Since the slalom line has no gaps and everything is rollable, like pumptracks in the park we fall under the XC rating.
On the surface it's a head scratcher, but the more i think about it, it makes sense. All that being said, there are riders we know with an amazing skill set, and riders of all ages with little and everywhere inbetween, and they're all really excited about the trail. i've touted this trail to be top shelf, and really that's the primary reason is being able to successfully build a trail that is genuinely fun for riders of all skill sets.
There's been alot of lofty goals with the trail and we've been able to pull them off so far. None of them are easy to obtain.
So i really didn't take the gentrified comment too seriously as what our goals were with this trail. And the shot i took about 12 year olds becoming more skilled, well i'm actually being pretty serious about that, as we're building these parks with trails that enable kids to gain skills in months, what took many of us years to obtain.
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