After witnessing the speed of vehicle traffic on the recently reopened Sechler Road (it’s closed to vehicles during the winter months), the CROCT Board made a quick decision last week to remove the ditch crossing bridge that we installed recently and reroute the trail directly over the creek prior to the gate at the north entrance to the park, keeping riders completely away from the road/pavement.
The creek crossing required a bigger bridge than the one we used for the ditch so the two bridges that a crew of CROCT volunteers fashioned from the wood of the old Mill Towns Trail bridge were put into service:
Last Tuesday, CROCT member John Ebling used his tractor to transport the bridges to the shoulder of Sechler Road near the creek crossings:
On Wednesday, crews of volunteers carried and positioned the bridges over the creeks and carved out a new trail corridor route for the large creek crossing:
Yesterday, another crew of volunteers did the finishing work (rock and gravel ramps) on the approaches to the bridges:
And they added a fun bermed corner that keeps riders away from the old trail segment that crossed the ditch:
As the crew was finishing up that berm, they were rewarded by two very appreciative young mountain bikers riding the trail for the first time:
(Photos by Carl Arnold, Laura Chihara, and yours truly.)
Among the volunteer trail workers who participated in this project:
Todd Amunrud
Carl Arnold
Jerry Bilek
Jeremy Bokman
Laura Chihara
John Ebling
Jeff Kreis
Sue Healey
Kevin Herman
Ryan Hutchinson
Scott Koehler
Marty Larson
Stew Moyer
Galen Murray
Todd Orjala
John Rubin
Tony Seidl
David Strachan
Jim Wellbrock
From the photos, there is at least one other I don’t recognize who needs to be added to this list. And there may be others I don’t know about. If you participated, contact me and I’ll add your name to the blog post.