Trail Toil Day 1-3; Snake Pit and Lajitas Trails

For the past eight days, my life has been defined by one single task; trail work.  At three distinct locations and with a multitude of wonderful people, I’ve been lopping cacti, building cairns, mitigating erosion, turning double-track into single-track, moving bridges and even scouting some lesser-used trails way out in the Big Bend Ranch State Park.  Though it all came to an end yesterday afternoon when my Cannondale Lefty suspension fork lost all pressure(I think the cartridge is blown, again), all that hard work was so incredibly rewarding.

This is part one of my week of trail toil.

It all began last Friday while I was on-call with TFEMS.  Near the Ghost-town, there exists a network of fun & fast, tight & twisty single-track trails known to locals only.  Those trails also serve as pathways between homes belonging to friends.  While those trails are in great shape, there is one essential access point that was completely overgrown; the ominously named Snake Pit.

The grass was taller than I, the cat-claws and other cacti having woven a web like some great impenetrable wall.  So, swinging a McLeod under the afternoon sun, I spent about about an hour and a half clearing a path through that dense jungle.  It was dusty, sweaty work, as I kept both eyes open for snakes in the grass.  Fortunately, I came away unscathed.  Now my friends and I can access those neighbourhood trails through the Snake Pit to our favourite hang-out, The Spot.

Saturday morning, myself and about 20 others, organized by the Big Bend Trails Alliance, set out for two days working on the Lajitas Trails.  Meeting at the Bread Truck we broke into small groups each charged with a specific sections of trail to clear and repair.  I was paired with Chris and Billy and assigned a section of trail #4; starting at the Cul-de-suc, heading east along JR’s Single-track then Bobski’s Single-track to the creek crossing near where 4 and 4A join.

We three spent 6 hours clearing blood-thirsty cacti, redefining the trails and fixing a few spots that have caused riders a bit of trouble.  Good ole fashioned hard work.  It would seem, however, that Border Patrol decided we needed a bit more work to do.  As such, they rode horseback across several sections of trail and where it was soft, their horses left 2-6″ deep hoof prints that we had to fill in.  In fact, we had to do that twice as they back-tracked.  While they were friendly enough, we were not too pleased with this little government make-work project.

At camp that night, we all ate well, enjoyed a few wobbly-pops and many laughs.  I was the first in bed, not even making it to 9:30pm.

Sunday morning, following a stunning sunrise, we gathered a short distance from the Bread Truck for the big job; removing, carrying, then reinstalling a wooden bridge.  It had been installed a few years ago to span a badly eroded dip, one that had previously washed away a 2.5′ metal culvert.  Some time this summer, the rushing waters of heavy rains transformed that 4′ dip into a 25′ chasm with the walls already cracking near the ends of the bridge.  It had become dangerous and needed to be remedied before someone got hurt.

So, with straps and much encouragement, eight of us lifted and carried that bridge upstream about 50′ to a shallow spot.  It was then dragged across the gap, placed on large stones and the ends blended into the trail.  The trail was then rerouted to create seamless flow of desert single-track goodness.  A job well done!

Afterwards, everyone went for a ride on all the trails we worked on the day before.  Well, all but Bernadette and I.  We did a very short ride on the lower part of #3 back to the Airport Trailhead and her car where we drove home.  As the local Big Bend super-teacher-extraordinaire, Bernadette had work to do.  For my part, I knew that my week of toil had just begun…..

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