Day Eight, Proctor Ravine

At Franklin Falls park there is a trail called Chicken Ravine, it goes up and down the sides of a ravine that runs through part of the park, and it is super fun to ride. You go up, then turn and go down super fast, it is a blast. We are always looking for areas in the woodlands that simulate this, and while it might not be as long as the ravine in Franklin, I found a little one that could have some fun stuff done, it possibly has potential is what I'm saying. 

This is looking down, it is a bit steeper in person, it also continues off the right side of the photo

In the morning I worked on benching and getting a nice bench in on a section of the lower trail. I found a interesting guide that was put out by IMBA, in association with the town of Castle Rock, Colarado. It goes over proper sustainable trail building technique, and there is a lot of stuff on grading and building retaining walls, all very interesting, but a lot of work. For benching you are suppose to have the hill gently slope into the flat benched spot, then slope away, not have a wall on one side then the hill on the other. Good stuff, but the soil has a few too many rocks to make it practical for my purposes. 

The wall should not be on the left side, but have the same grade as the hill after the flat bit

I have found that I am at a place with the switchback section that I am happy with, so I have decided that the best use of my time is going to be to work on laying out sections of trail farther up the mountain, which I began today. I did have a pleasant surprise when I ran into Moriah Keat, and had a great time catching up. After that I went to the hardware store and picked up some survey tape, and, after noticing a sale on loppers, a pair of loppers. I then started laying out little sections of trail up past where the Greenway turns onto Wilsons Wonder Trail. 

Survey tape

Critter Cam

I was disappointed that I did not get any pictures of wildlife today, so I looked back through my phone and found a good one from home. 

Some white tail deer chilling in my backyard