Hartshorne Trail maintenance info

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A quick pic before I left the TM yesterday. Lots of heads showed up including @knobbyhead We kept fine tuning the top turn on Rocky Point and got a lot done. I rode it both directions a few times on Sunday and it felt very good and I think the work we did will make it even better.

@pooriggy Iggy might have some pics with different angles.
 
I just want to thank everyone who has helped with these trails over the last few years. This post started in oct 2020. When I wrote my 1st post, I never thought we'd get some much done.

In that time we've:

Built new trails
Did numerous trail reroutes
Lots of grade reversals for better water management.
Bench cuts- lots and lots of benchcuts.
Rock fortification of the water tower trail.
And lastly we've cut back off the trail all the invasives that were causing blind spots and scrapes and cuts.

Most of all I'd like to thank @pooriggy for all the work he has done for this park and all the other Monmouth county parks. And @don for all the experience and knowledge he brings to these tms.

I'd also like to thank @pooriggy for bringing in L'Oreal crew that help spread out like 4 dump trucks full of dirt on the upper trailhead on rocky point. And the other environmental group of guys that got so much done that day, I forgot what they did. But they were such a great group to work with.

Looking ahead, I'm really excited about the reroute being planned for the grand tour trail in the Monmouth hills section. This is the section of trail now closed because the contractors are removing the dead trees.
 
Thanks @knobbyhead, its very satisfying to work on trails and improve what we have. I am very thankful for you and all the volunteers that come out to work on trails. Time is worth more then money, I appreciate those who give of there time to benefit others.

The Devil's elbow is less elbow and more sweep now, making it more user friendly in bofe directions. It seems like a relatively simple fix but it took us some time to actually get this right, but you know what they say...plan 2x dig once. We actually planned like 3-4x but dug only once.

Classic grade reversal before the sweeping downhill turn.
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The wide turn with in-slope.
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Slight grade dip as trail straightens out.
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You can make a difference on the trails. Be a volunteer. Reach out to me, we work Mondays 9am-12pm.
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The heavy volume of rain we received over the weekend was a good test of the new trail work we have been doing for the last two years.

It's great to see the work we've done shed water, with no damage to the trail. I can't say the same for the trails we have not worked on.

Hartshorne drains well due to its sandy soil, but it also erodes easily if trails are not built right.

Sustainable trail, is fun trail.

Easy like Monday morning. Adding some flare to devils elbow with Nick, UK Steve, Brian,Roland, Jeff, and @don .
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pooriggy said:
The heavy volume of rain we received over the weekend was a good test of the new trail work we have been doing for the last two years.

It's great to see the work we've done shed water, with no damage to the trail. I can't say the same for the trails we have not worked on.

Hartshorne drains well due to its sandy soil, but it also erodes easily if trails are not built right.

Sustainable trail, is fun trail.

Easy like Monday morning. Adding some flare to devils elbow with Nick, UK Steve, Brian,Roland, Jeff, and @don .
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Wow, that's great work!!

Big bench cut!!
 
knobbyhead said:
Wow, that's great work!!

Big bench cut!!
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lol - the guys did a lot of bench and we added a bunch of material to try and get a grade reversal/dip to shed off the water.


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Hard to tell but Chris, Steve and Roland put a lock of rock armoring into this intersection. I hiked this section on Sunday to see flow patterns (Patagonia boat gear works well!) and the amount of water coming down the legacy trail on Devil's Elbow was massive! Some existing drainage work we had done worked very well but Chris's work has made it bullet proof!
 
pooriggy said:
I can't say the same for the trails we have not worked on.
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The amount of rain that came down (I heard 8" locally) was tough on lots of the trail in the park. We have some fixes and improvement on items we've worked on over the last couple of years but the other recent work on the other side of the park is already blown out badly.

I hate to pick at this but I've been saying for years (decades even) that those wooden water bars are the furthest thing from sustainable trail.
 
don said:
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lol - the guys did a lot of bench and we added a bunch of material to try and get a grade reversal/dip to shed off the water.


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Hard to tell but Chris, Steve and Roland put a lock of rock armoring into this intersection. I hiked this section on Sunday to see flow patterns (Patagonia boat gear works well!) and the amount of water coming down the legacy trail on Devil's Elbow was massive! Some existing drainage work we had done worked very well but Chris's work has made it bullet proof!
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I've been told the proper name for this section isn't Devil's Elbow, its Devil's Taint. Decide for yourselves. :thumbsup:

And thanks for the awesome work! You guys kick butt.
 
don said:
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The amount of rain that came down (I heard 8" locally) was tough on lots of the trail in the park. We have some fixes and improvement on items we've worked on over the last couple of years but the other recent work on the other side of the park is already blown out badly.

I hate to pick at this but I've been saying for years (decades even) that those wooden water bars are the furthest thing from sustainable trail.
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This section of trail is such a mess. I can't wait to work on this. I know it's somewhere on the list.

Edit words
 
After the heavy rains a few weeks ago some trails at Huber got hit really hard.

Fox Hollow was pretty much destroyed. That trails has been eroding for years but recently it go to the point of being dangerous.

We are in the process of rerouting this trail, adding grade reversals to shed water. The original trail was about 400yrds down hill, with old water bars that stopped working 20 yrs ago.

Don may have a Pic of some finish work we started, he did a nice job on entrance to reroute.

Thanks @knobbyhead , Bob, Jeff, Brian, Ken @don and seasonal trail crew member Nick.


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pooriggy said:
After the heavy rains a few weeks ago some trails at Huber got hit really hard.

Fox Hollow was pretty much destroyed. That trails has been eroding for years but recently it go to the point of being dangerous.

We are in the process of rerouting this trail, adding grade reversals to shed water. The original trail was about 400yrds down hill, with old water bars that stopped working 20 yrs ago.

Don may have a Pic of some finish work we started, he did a nice job on entrance to reroute.
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A few quick ones from today. @pooriggy did a great job of laying out the new reroute. Once done it will have the same feel as most of the other trails at Huber which have a nice organic feel. Chris and I were guessing the old route was a farm road or cut by a machine years ago and with the straight downhill design and the waterbar "fixes" the trail just ate itself up over the years.

The first is looking down the trail into the new entrance. We built a roller to shed water to the left. There are a lot of water forces in play in this area so any drainage work should help.

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Entrance to the first section of the reroute. @knobbyhead and I transferred a bunch of material to make the new entrance more inviting and to give it the correct pitch to lead you in.

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First part looking up. The rangers were supposed to cut the log across the trail but we didn't see them during the TM. For the folks that miss "Many Log Run" maybe hit it up soon to get that log hop feel.

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SmooveP said:
A few times out of the 3,000+ times I rode there. Probably only when I rode with someone else (like you) and you made me do it.
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Love you Pat. I maybe can confirm that you have indeed climbed it, at least once. You probably complained at the top.

Back to trail maintenance chatter. Thank you guys (Chris, Don and other board members) for all you do for our home trail system.
 
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