Man, it’s so much fun.
Henry and I and a neighbor boy made a quarter mile of informal singletrack trail today.
It brings back good memory-feelings of when I laid out similar
expert-loops in the same areas 15 years ago. It has since all gone back to the blowdowns, as I’ve been using other trails more. Now that the kids are big enough to be frisky and need to blow off their own steam each day, I think more twisty fun local trail is in order.
To me this kind of project locks in a great autumn/November work-type of experience. I think that whenever I do such work it’s at this exact time of year. The color spree is over, the forests are opening up. My eyes see trail.
It’s a bit like running a trapline: going out every day and making progress on an enduring, versatile asset via hale’n’hearty work in the woods as the weather gets colder…
It’s so much fun standing in the woods, looking for the right line to take through the topography to do three things at once: *get the right flow, *catch the right views, *be able to use the woods “as is.” The trail is there if you can see it. We don’t ever cut trees or even saplings. We’re just moving dead stuff out of the way, and lightweight rotted dead stuff at that. Our goal is the least work and the most trail made per hour. Usually it’s just me and a pocket saw. Light, fast and low impact. I can walk along, stop, evaluate terrain, then get moving again and create a lot of trail in short order. It’s just so much fun… What starts out as woods full of deadfall ends up with a nice, curving trail flowing out behind our jiffy work.
The boys weren’t all that much use, but they were OK. Nonstop jabbering and hollering and the desire to stop and pointlessly chop for a long time on logs rather than just roll them away. Kids love a hatchet. And a machete. I let ’em bring ’em for adventure’s sake, but they aren’t the best tools for our mission. I suppose they were just excited. Sadly, there’s some negativity in there, too, some of the time, but what can ya do. 13 is 13 most everywhere these days. “This is stupid. Let’s go play a video game.” Thankfully, they have a slight willingness to believe that, despite all evidence, reality just might possibly be worthwhile, and that Dad’s crazy unheard of projects just might contain the tiniest shred of future benefit and fun for themselves and others, and that *just maybe* there’s satisfaction in creative effort.
There’s also a bit of “I don’t like biking or running or trails or skiing or canoeing. That’s what YOU like.” …The ol’ differentiation. Except I do notice that the boys do head off for trail-biking on their own now and then. And H realizes a tiny bit that he’s at a stage where he doesn’t really like anything, reality hasn’t won him over yet. But he’s willing to be taken along for the ride…much unconvinced. Thankfully one of his pals is at a different stage: he’s game and gungho. Friends matter. “Hey, let me help you mow that lawn!”
I suppose they did about 25% of the work, which is fine. I didn’t expect more. It’s cute to have them along and to see if they catch a bit of appreciation for what they’re doing. We were getting dialed in near the end of our outing — we’ll soon have a smooth system rolling.
What we do is walk a segment to find the right lines and flow — that doesn’t cross any big fallen logs — then go back, removing all the bigger dead stuff along the way, then turn back again, removing little shrubs and briars and flipping smaller dead sticks out of the way, tidying up.
This trail will be good for dyno-running and mtbiking as well as skiing.
It’s pretty darn soft, deep and loamy with leaf litter — you’d have to ride it 50 times to get it kinda fast.
I’ve realized that I don’t have to move every huge log crossing: we can do the mt-bike thing and build up ramps of small logs and sticks on their side to make a terrain-feature out of it. That’ll be fine for skis, too. We’re making flying-turns into sidehills and such, too — skateparks won’t have a thing on our trail.
The system I instinctively developed to enable the boys to contribute was to walk forward, pointing out to them a half dozen easy deadfalls to remove, then I’d push onward, doing my own flinging, so we could be clearing two sections at a time, leapfrogging our way along.
Last night Henry did say he was tired for some reason and ready for bed…
