Trail Maintenance - don't do this

[gmb3]

Don't leave that ick.
View attachment 223431

Grab a stick and make a nick!
View attachment 223432

I couldn't help myself. Stick nick did its job - there was no standing water in the rut but it was mushy.

Dug out the low drainage side a little and threw the dirt onto the rut

Found some perfectly square/rectangle rocks from an old stone wall 30 ft away and dug a trench down the middle of the dirt pile for them

Filled rut with rock jigsaw pieces

Pulled dirt back over the top and packed it all in. The low spot is now the high ground. Not perfect but should weather in nice.

I really enjoy doing this stuff. If only trail building paid as well as corporate America.

 

[mtn]

I'm not entirely sure what attachment you're asking about, but I have one of these from Lowes that I use on my Kobalt 80V trimmer (that takes universal trimmer accessories) and it works pretty well.

Oh nice. I do have a new dewalt universal leaf blower attachment if anyone is interested in that.

 

[Patrick]

Here is one at 6MR.

Trees fall near the trail and the easy thing is to cut back the branches.
They do migrate downhill, so even if they were cut back a foot or so,
they will end up at the trail edge.

This one was thigh high, just off the edge of the trail, and getting covered with whatever green stuff was local (PI, creeper, grape)
I'm fairly sure a shot to the outside of the thigh would be a significant injury.
These are hard to see when riding - so make sure you hike your local trails and cut these back.

 

[pooriggy]

This one was thigh high, just off the edge of the trail, and getting covered with whatever green stuff was local (PI, creeper, grape)

This is how invasive vines get 6' tall. They cling to deadfall along the side of the trail.

It's best to clear deadfall back at least 10' from the trail. This allows an industrial mower to keep the edges of the trail from getting overgrown, without running into dead logs.

This is good winter work when vegetation is not leafed out. We'll cut back hard for 15" and mow the edge of the trail a few times during the summer. It's so much easier to mow verse using a hedge trimmer.

When this leafs out its a bear to deal with. There was deadfall underneath this mess.

Same trail after a hard cut.

The following June after mowing with Billy Goat.

 

[mtn]

Here is one at 6MR.

Trees fall near the trail and the easy thing is to cut back the branches.
They do migrate downhill, so even if they were cut back a foot or so,
they will end up at the trail edge.

This one was thigh high, just off the edge of the trail, and getting covered with whatever green stuff was local (PI, creeper, grape)
I'm fairly sure a shot to the outside of the thigh would be a significant injury.
These are hard to see when riding - so make sure you hike your local trails and cut these back.

View attachment 224265

Looks like the highly invasive japanese stiltgrass to me.

 

[stb222]

Looks like the highly invasive japanese stiltgrass to me.

That’s exactly what it is, takes over at every park in this area along the trail

 

[stb222]

The Japanese stiltgrass:
Sorry about the dark pictures, vampire lyf

The issue with the Stiltgrass, aside from spreading everywhere there is open space along a trail, is that it grows tall and eventually lays over on the trail. So even if you wait until it dies / goes dormant, you now have a layer of grass on the trail. In general that isnt a great situation and it will hold moisture on the trail tread. The other annoying thing is the way it lays, you have to get under it to cut it, so you can use a weed wacker, but you can easily "miss" near the roots and you trimmed something, but you didnt clear it. It also rips out pretty easy, however that is very time consuming.

This is at Water Company, there is a trail under there.

This picture shows a bit better how it almost makes a canopy over the tread.

I use a hedge trimmer, put the blade under the "canopy" and cut forward or backwards sweeping away from the tread. I an not a huge fan of the sweeping back and forth over the tread and leaving most of the clippings in the tread. I often do a second sweep in the same area to clear the higher stuff. This is a perfect application for the hedge trimmer blade on the end of the weed wacker. But i typically do a full service trim / high and low at the same time and the hedge trimmer works best for that and I can transport it in my backpack...All that being said, it murders my back bending over with the hedge trimmer.

 

[a.s.]

Is it me or has Japanese stiltgrass exploded in these parts? It's all over my property and I see it everywhere on the trails.

 

[JimN]

Is it me or has Japanese stiltgrass exploded in these parts?

I didn't know what it was called or if it's getting worse, but a trail I rode last night is covered with it. I've ridden this short trail a hundred times but almost got lost 2-3 times.

 

[stb222]

This is how invasive vines get 6' tall. They cling to deadfall along the side of the trail.

It's best to clear deadfall back at least 10' from the trail. This allows an industrial mower to keep the edges of the trail from getting overgrown, without running into dead logs.

This is good winter work when vegetation is not leafed out. We'll cut back hard for 15" and mow the edge of the trail a few times during the summer. It's so much easier to mow verse using a hedge trimmer.

When this leafs out its a bear to deal with. There was deadfall underneath this mess.
View attachment 224267
Same trail after a hard cut.
View attachment 224268
The following June after mowing with Billy Goat.
View attachment 224269View attachment 224270

This is an interesting approach which seems to favor ease of maintenance and limiting liability over environmental impacts and aesthetics (obviously aesthetics is relatively low on this list but what used to be single track is now riding on a grass path with a trail in the middle).

There is no one solution that works everywhere, but Mercer focuses fighting back the invasive plants to allow the native plants to thrive and doing large planting efforts of native plants. I have seen it work too, I have a few project areas where I let the spice bush grow and trimmed the invasive and it make a difference with crowding out the invasive stuff. It makes the maintenance (trimming) WAY slower and I would be banned for life if showed up with a brush hog. This is at Baldpate, which is a preserve so the environmental people are nuts about it. I get comments if we trim wider than 3'. In stark contrast, it would appear Mercer County could give a crap about Mercer County Park in this regard.

My point is, there has to be a middle ground here.

 

[stb222]

Is it me or has Japanese stiltgrass exploded in these parts? It's all over my property and I see it everywhere on the trails.

Yes, it seems like the past 6-7 years it has gotten really bad.

 

[clarkenstein]

The Japanese stiltgrass:
Sorry about the dark pictures, vampire lyf

The issue with the Stiltgrass, aside from spreading everywhere there is open space along a trail, is that it grows tall and eventually lays over on the trail. So even if you wait until it dies / goes dormant, you now have a layer of grass on the trail. In general that isnt a great situation and it will hold moisture on the trail tread. The other annoying thing is the way it lays, you have to get under it to cut it, so you can use a weed wacker, but you can easily "miss" near the roots and you trimmed something, but you didnt clear it. It also rips out pretty easy, however that is very time consuming.

This is at Water Company, there is a trail under there.
View attachment 224281
This picture shows a bit better how it almost makes a canopy over the tread.
View attachment 224282

I use a hedge trimmer, put the blade under the "canopy" and cut forward or backwards sweeping away from the tread. I an not a huge fan of the sweeping back and forth over the tread and leaving most of the clippings in the tread. I often do a second sweep in the same area to clear the higher stuff. This is a perfect application for the hedge trimmer blade on the end of the weed wacker. But i typically do a full service trim / high and low at the same time and the hedge trimmer works best for that and I can transport it in my backpack...All that being said, it murders my back bending over with the hedge trimmer.

This is exactly what I do. I take the hedge trimmer for this stuff (and other stuff) cut low and sweep away from the trail. Most times I don’t even need to go back with a rake.

 

[pooriggy]

This is an interesting approach which seems to favor ease of maintenance and limiting liability over environmental impacts and aesthetics (obviously aesthetics is relatively low on this list but what used to be single track is now riding on a grass path with a trail in the middle).

There is no one solution that works everywhere, but Mercer focuses fighting back the invasive plants to allow the native plants to thrive and doing large planting efforts of native plants. I have seen it work too, I have a few project areas where I let the spice bush grow and trimmed the invasive and it make a difference with crowding out the invasive stuff. It makes the maintenance (trimming) WAY slower and I would be banned for life if showed up with a brush hog. This is at Baldpate, which is a preserve so the environmental people are nuts about it. I get comments if we trim wider than 3'. In stark contrast, it would appear Mercer County could give a crap about Mercer County Park in this regard.

My point is, there has to be a middle ground here.

The vegetation we are cutting back is mulitflora rose, wisteria vine, and greenbrier, which is technically not an invasive but an invader.
We target these invasive plants which take over sections of trail with a fair amount of sunlight.
My point was to illustrate how invasives grow over deadfall. (as a response to Pats post of deadfall next to a trail) The first photo I posted is invasives covering dead fall. I don't recommend cutting native plants out so you can mow a trail. I do recommend keeping deadfall back away from trails which recieve a lot of sunlight, so invasives don't take over the area. As a follow up, I've seen repeated mowing as a helpful tool to weed out non native material.
Thank you for the work you do Kevin to keep the trails in good shape.

 

[Norm]

not an invasive but an invader

What's the difference? Is that like the difference between E.T. and Independence Day?

 

[JonF]

It can invade, but chooses not to?

 

[pooriggy]

What's the difference? Is that like the difference between E.T. and Independence Day?

More like Smokey and the Bandit III verse Porkys.
Both bad but Smokey is a legacy.

 

[Cole]

It can invade, but chooses not to?

Sounds like it... lacks ambition

 

[Patrick]

More like Smokey and the Bandit III verse Porkys.
Both bad but Smokey is a legacy.

The Hollywood Knights is under rated.

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I have some stuff in a backpack sprayer that will take care of it. But then it isn't really selective.
the vacuum of a good mower seems to take care of this stuff - brush hog. prob in 6mr is the tightness of the trees -
where it is open (sunlight) it is a problem. russian olive is everywhere too.

 

[JonF]

Not sure whats in the water at 6Mi, but the weeds there are particularly nefarious.

 

[Kaleidopete]

Tell the bears stop moving rocks!