What's Coming In Trail Maintenance

Trails Resource Director

There have been some changes made in the area of trail maintenance. Ken Lee, who had been organizing the different maintenance areas and collecting reports, moved to other things in another state. Such being the case, and since he was trail leader for Richmond Hill, these two areas of the maintenance scene have changed. The club has been talking to Woody Keen, who has been indispensable in applying for and receiving grants for our club, as well as educating the public on trail maintenance procedures and leading maintenance camps. We'd like to create a new position within the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club, one that would head up the maintenance area of our club. We have a lot of members who volunteer for weekend work at local mountain bike trails, and we need to start acknowledging their efforts in a timely and appropriate manner. Woody has organized monthly projects in DuPont State Forest and also has more contact with DuPont and Pisgah land managers that any other BRBC member.

The new position would be titled "Trails Resource Director." Responsibilities would include organizing specific trail maintenance schedules and leaders for each area, collecting trail reports from each maintenance leader, forwarding those reports to the Forest Service and to the club. Also, any other information pertinent to trail maintenance—i.e. tools purchased or needed, grants applied for and approved, Dingo information—would be forwarded to the club. That way, its members will know what's going on with regard to BRBC involvement with local trail maintenance efforts.

Woody has agreed to take this position, when created, although he may not have the time to cover all responsibilities on his own. Details will be worked out at the January Officers Retreat.

With regard to the regular trail maintenance schedule, Woody plans to start organizing the maintenance leaders sometime this fall. He would also like to have 2-4 training sessions for crew leaders next year to make sure everyone is on the same page.

IMBA Epic In DuPont State Forest

Woody organized the IMBA Epic in 2001. A writeup can be found on IMBA's website.

IMBA Trail School

Woody organized the trail school in 2001, which hosted over 60 participants. Mountain bikers, equestrians, trail runners, Sierra Club members, hikers, and land managers attended. "The driving force behind the trail school was Woody and JoJo Keen, Chuck Ramsey, and the rest of the Friends of DuPont Forest... Woody carefully split up any cliques, groups, and couples in the team assignments, which helped in getting folks to make new friends outside of their usual user group." Every user group was represented in each team. "Overall it was one of the most energizing and educational trail schools we've taught or attended."

(Quotes from IMBA—see IMBA: Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crews: 2001: Dupont State Forest, Western North Carolina )

Adopt-A-Trail

In Spring, 2002, a $3000.00 grant for Adopt-A-Trail was received for the club to buy hand tools. Cheri Rosenblatt at Backcountry Outdoors in Brevard wrote the grant application, and Woody did all the legwork. Once the grant was received, he also bought tools that were needed and allocated them to the different trail maintenance crew leaders.

Recreational Trails Program

We have $3000.00 in grant money for education to be used for trail schools. This money is still in the bank, as we charged for the trail building schools that we hosted and broke even on the events. Woody put on three trail building schools that had BRBC's name as the main sponsor and organizer. He plans to use the money as seed money for more trail schools in the future.

Dingo

A $20,000 grant application was recently received for a Dingo, which will be used for developing new trails and maintaining existing trails. Woody did all the grant applications and legwork, and has picked up the Dingo and a trailer to haul it on. Anyone who would like to learn to use the Dingo must attend a 2 day training session. Contact Woody for more information at ascentdesc@citcom.net

Trail Consulting

Woody Keen and Ed Sutton have started a trail design, consulting, and building business, called "Trail Dynamics." Their first contract is to build some trails for the Biltmore Estate. Anyone who has any questions regarding this area of expertise should contact Woody at ascentdesc@citcom.net

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