O'Bannon Work Weekend Nov 12th and 13th.

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

We got a lot accomplished last weekend and we are ready to start busting open sections of trail.  The next leg of the Fire Tower Loop will use 300' of elevation! 

The plan is to knock out the entrance to the trail we have been building around the swimming pool.  It is farely easy construction, so we should be able to knock it out in one weekend.  That will add on about a mile of trail. 

We will be working on Saturday and Sunday and we will have a few camp sites for Saturday night. I may been camping out Friday night as well.

Bring your bikes and be among the first to ride the new section of trail.

Paul

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

Its time to start getting excited about the next section of the Fire Tower Trail.

Here is the elevation profile.



This overall map, shows complete trails in orange.  The red are the RTP trails that will be built next year.



We will be connecting the complete trail east of the Pool to the fire tower, and this will create more trail to ride at O'Bannon.

[ralphfsf]

What are the start times (ET or CT) and location for the work sessions?

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

We will start at 9:00AM Eastern.  But feel free to arrive later.  It will be real easy to find us.

We will be parking in the lot on the left, just past the guard house. 



We will be working on the trail shown in yellow. It will be easy to find it from the parking lot.  Just hike till you find us. 

The goal is to at least rough it in enough to get the first set of tires on the trail we have waiting.  So bring your bikes.

Paul

[Dave G.]

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, Al and I will be down to help out 

Dave
 

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

Great, I just stans'd up my more aggressive tires.  I am looking forward to riding some new trails.

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

I will be camping on Friday and Saturday evening.  Look for us on the left as you drive down the main road in the camp ground. 

Weather looks great.

Paul

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

Bring lights, as rides could be up against the early sunset.

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

Great turn out today. 8 of us got 2/3rds of the way to breaking through.  Please help us if you can tomorrow open over a mile of new trail.

[Dave G.]

Al and I enjoyed finally getting in some rhino swinging, and a fun ride with Chris and Austin afterwards.  Some of the video I took was jumpy due to a problem with the helmet mount, but it showed some nice fast flowing trail riding on Firetower.

Dave

[Paul_Arlinghaus]

We and a good turn out of experienced trail builders.

Saturdays crew was 8 strong, and the side slopes were shallow, so we made quick progress.

The first section of trail was in a flatter area and was mostly rake and ride.  It will be a nice easy warm up for what's to come.



This section is going to start the descending and hurt on the climb back up.  To get above a horse trail we had to run 7% grade, and then kick up to 10% at the top.

We did do one nice rock project.



It was opening weekend of deer season.  Someone got a nice buck.



It wasn't the hunters that had us worried, it was the high winds.  5 of us worked today to finish connecting to the trails that were waiting (IMBA Trail Care Session, Volunteer days, DNR trail crew work).  We had just connected when the winds really started to gust. We branches starting to come down we called it a day and got out of the woods.