Work & Play Saturday

This morning (Saturday) Jolene and I drove to Suncrest to do some trail work. A downhill trail is being built there and we joined some other volunteers for some construction. After some instruction we picked up some tools and walked down the trail. A lot has already been done and it looks like a fun trail - the DHers are going to love it.

Our assignment was to do a bench cut into the side of a slope greater than 45 degrees covered with brush. They had cut down the brush with chainsaws. We used Pulaskis and McClouds to chop out roots, rocks and removed dirt to cut into the hillside. Even at 9 in the morning it was warm due to the sun and with not much labor I was sweating. As an avid cyclist, guess how strong my upper body is? Not much, I discovered after swinging these tools.

This is what the "trail" looked like before we started (Jolene digging in):



And here's what it looked like after a line of us had been working a few hours:



Just before noon we stopped and hiked back out. It was hard work, but gratifying to see what a group of people can do.

We were pretty beat, but we'd brought our bikes and American Fork Canyon was calling, so we answered. We started at Timpooneke and rode up the Salamander Flat trail then up Pine Hollow to the Ridge and back down. The trails were general in great shape and it was cool, green and lovely.