in CamRock (Moderator: TheMayor1)

OK so just an hour ago we received permission from Dane County Parks to start building some sweet new trails at CamRock!

Here is the awesome news: When we get this done we will have singletrack all the way from CamRock Sport to Heather's Rockdale Bar & Grill.... I mean from Cambridge to Rockdale :D With lots of other fun bits to ride as well. And this will be a really cool trail! Hugging the creek the whole way. It will be a ton of fun and some gorgeous scenery at the same time.

Here is the other news: This winter all groomed trails will be off-limits to bikers, hikers, snowshoer's, dog-walkers, etc. We want to keep the skiers happy and keep their trails in good shape. This gains us trail and gets us more nice winter singletrack. A win-win for sure! If we are going to be riding bikes from Cambridge to our sweet singletrack trails this winter we need to get this trail built! It is over a mile of trail, and by usual weather patterns we have about 5 weeks to get it built. I know it is a ton of trail to build. I know it is a very short time frame. We want to get this built before winter So we gotta get to it!

We have other good news to help us. This is almost all flat trail. We will have VERY little dirt to move. The woods sections are pretty open. Through the woods we are mainly chainsawing out downed trees and clearing some small trees/shrubs out of the way. The prairies basically need a real solid mowing and then probably raking or blowing the thick grass to the side.

This will be the trail to use for all non-skiing users this winter so we will want to cut it nice and wide. Both for the multiple users and because it will be two-way traffic. The other good thing is that other park users want to see this trail get built as well. We already have non-bikers chiming in that they want to help. So we go that going for us.....

More details to come. Prolly a Trail Building Day coming up on Sunday so stay tuned!

That's great news Chuck.  Keep us posted on the work day.  Is the trail flagged already?

Thanks for he inquiries about the Winter Trail Building Days. Here is where we are at. Things are developing fast. The trail is only rough flagged. It needs to get finish flagged in much more detail before we have a big work day. I also need to get the chainsaw out there and cut the downed trees, etc. I will not run a chainsaw in an area with lots of folks running around. Trying to get things done quickly is just not worth the risk of someone getting hurt.

CamRock Sport is planning to greatly support this effort by even paying employees to help get this done before winter The plan for now: A few of us will get started on Sunday to get the trail ready for building. The goal is to get the trail finish flagged and the downed trees cut. We will have a big Trail Building Day the weekend of the 17th to hopefully get a ton of trail built. We could prolly use a couple of experienced hands Sunday if you want to help out. If you have built trail and know your way around the woods give me a call at 7:SEVEN:TWO 7:EIGHT THREE:3  - phone number using 9:ZERO:7 numerology

That is all for now. Details of big work day to come.

I should have a few hours to commit. I'll email Dave to see if he will be around. That will be 2 or 3 FISTA people.

I've got big chain saws, small chain saws, brush cutters and the mother of all leaf blowers. And being fall, I actually have some time, I could totally help out on Sunday. Oh, I've got a Kubota UTV too... would that help?

OK, with that out of the way, I'm going to put my ecologist dork hat on. While there are prairies out at Cam Rock, not every field of grass is a prairie. There are two prairies (recreations) out there, one is along that cut-off trails used during races between Woodchuck and the Round-About, and the other we pass through after the downhill following Mayor's Playground, or Dave's Deer Path on the way back. All the other grassy areas out there are just weedy fields.

OK dork and Josh, maybe Dave With some more planning I think we can get a lot done on Sunday. I can take a couple of the newbies like the guys from CamRock Sport, and work on final marking of the line. You guys can follow and cut all the downed stuff out of the way. That will get us a great start and we will see how far we get. We have a ton of trail to build so it would be great to get a good start on it.

And I just might take you up on that Kubota! We have a couple of short stretches that will require some benching. If it would work I am sure it would make quick work of these sections.

Sorry for confusion, its not a tractor, its one of these:



In my industry "Kubota" generally refers to UTV/RTV type vehicles. Its good for carrying gear around.

Sorry for confusion, its not a tractor, its one of these:

In my industry "Kubota" generally refers to UTV/RTV type vehicles. Its good for carrying gear around.

Bring it, bring it, bring it!!! Dude that would be awesome to shuttle stuff up and down the trail :D
I mean if it is not too much of a hassle anyway. We certainly can get by without it.

Good to know as well that we will only be building through a field of weeds. I feel much better about that. It seems to be pretty much a monoculture for a lot of the area we are going through.

Chuck,  I'm available if you need an extra hand.

Thom.

So are you going to announce a time/meeting place, or do we need to call you for a super-secret handshake?

Rich, Good oak, Thom if you guys want to lend a hand that would be great. We will have a couple of chainsaw crews working to clear the trail corridor. And I will head out with a crew to finish flagging the trail and stay ahead of the chainsaw crews.

We will meet at CamRock Sport at 8a for the needed caffeine and go from there. Work until at least noon. I know some plan to go longer. Give me a call at 7:SEVEN:2  7:EIGHT THREE:3

Sorry for confusion, its not a tractor, its one of these:



In my industry "Kubota" generally refers to UTV/RTV type vehicles. Its good for carrying gear around.

This machine is seriously badass! Put it on the wish list. Maybe Jin can hook us up with a contact at Kubota.......

Thanks to everyone who came out today: Jeff, Josh, Thom, Frank, Rich, Garrett, Dave. Who am i foregetting? It is late and I am cooked from the day today. Anyway, we had a good group of folks that came out and we got a ton of work done.

And an extra special thanks to Frank for coming out with the bad ass Kubota and the other equipment. You have that thing seriously set up for getting some work done. Very nice! It took some serious commitment to bring that out and I really appreciate it. Never got much of a chance to talk to you as I was way out ahead flagging, but we ought to at least cover your expenses for bringing that out. Let me know how we can connect with you on that.

The first 1/3 of trail from Cambridge south to the first bridge is 90% done. The next third through the open creek-side grassy area (that is not a prairie ) is started on. The entire trail is flagged. We are ready to keep knockin' this sucker out. We have a great start toward getting this built before the snow flies and the ground freezes up on us. For folks that know trail building work can be done any time you can get out there. We are planning on a big trail day or two this coming weekend. Stay tuned!

Hey All,

Bringing the Kubota was not that big of a deal. I was planning on dropping it off at the farm we are storing it anyway today, and that's half way between Madison and Cambridge, so it was just a little out of the way. In fact, I might be willing to let CORP borrow it for upcoming events.

The route clearing crew crew managed to clear the route up to the edge of the woods just north of Cam-Rock 1. So anyone could run the mower back and forth through the reed canary grass field section there 5 or 6 times until its cleared up. Are there plans to put in some kind of bridge there, seemed like a little channel there right before the trail route enters the woods there?

Thanks again Frank for bringing that out. It was a big help. We appreciate the donation.

We will need at least one bridge in for this trail. My thought is to do a temporary 12" section for this winter and see how it goes. If built like the what was just done at PV we can always re-use it somewhere else if it is not the end solution for that spot. I also have a boy scout who wants to do an Eagle Scout project at CamRock next spring. That might be the long term solution there.

We will eventually need a couple of shorter sections as well for drainage areas, assuming normal weather. For this winter it will depend. Not needed now in this drought.