This was the first trail day of the year, and also our second to last trail day event on the North Shore (since we’ll be moving away soon. Our last day will be in May).
The day was an overwhelming success, with over a hundred people coming out to help rebuild Boogieman. Without the support of our sponsors, this wouldn’t have been possible. Please remember our good friends when you are in need of supplies:
There’s another detailed writeup over at the NSMBA, go check it out. Oh, and please remember to sign up to be a member. Donations are always appreciated, but membership is free.
It was pretty clear from the get go that the winter of 2006-07 is going to be remembered for a long time. Record rainfall, record winds, record number of storms, record minimum hours of sunshine, record for consecutive days of rain, and …………. record warmest average temperature.
Ah well, it didn’t take that much to fix. This was one of the worst ruts and it got filled intot he tune of a few feet of boulders and dirt, plus some excellent water diversions.
With a helmet like that? Sure you can ride it.
On the prehike, we ran into some guys riding the line, and they were pretty gripped trying to stick to the eroded lines on the Boogie.
We decided to leave the majority of the last pitch intact, as it’s a bit more skilled labour involved with the controls on that hill. Hoots Jay and the Endless Biking gang did a much needed re-and-re on the PileDriver.
The entrance skinny, the berm, and the exit gap got some lovin.
Our man Thad wanted to fix the exit of the canoe log at the rest point after the swamp. You know, the one with the chain teeter? Anyway, the little corner at the end was getting a bit blown out.
It’s still tricky, but it’s been buffed up considerably.
The legendary log and bridge across the swamp took the brunt of this winter, with multiple downed trees and extensive damage to the original bridge sections.
Just trying to walk through here was challenging.
Luckily, all the raw material was just waiting for us, and once Mark got the debris cleared it was found that much of the original structure was salvageable.
Thats a LOT of wood.
With things tidied up a bit, it’s even better than new.
How about an uphill skinny?
The last segment of the log had the connection with the ground rebuilt, and a lot of surrounding trees were taken out in the storm. It’s probably easier than it used to be, but it feels way more exposed than it did before.
This entrance section where you got onto the log was subjected to heavy flooding and lots of running water when a stream overflowed onto the trail.
A couple of first timers on the scene (family groups no less) got down and dirty with these sections and filled the ruts, cambered the surface to drain to the edges, and hardened up some drains to help divert the water away from the wheels.
That should fix that puddle that used to form there.
Oh, and it’s also kind of bermed with a little airtime.
1st rider on the new stuff…..
He says it’s great, you just gotta go slow on this canoe log now. You can see how the exit was getting pounded by traffic.
Sven got in there and buffed out the majority of the log and made a skinny exit. Try it without hitting the brakes…
The old right angle dorp just before that upper canoe had gotten severely blown out this spring. The old steps holding the log up finally let go this year and it had been chewed down about 5 feet. The whole log was going to collapse soon.
Hmmmmm….what to do.
A couple of hube boulders for a foundation, then some thick struts to hold the log in place and filled in with big rocks and gold. There’s still a nice air line to the lookers left, and this is going to erode down a bit and get tricky again pretty soon. Some nice work here by some Squamish locs.
Some SSC trailbuilders came out and threw down on some seriously eroded areas, rocking in and building speedbumps. Forget about your smooth berms, this is the Boogieman. My pics sucked, but gotta give a mention to those guys. They worked hard on some real blue collar sections and did some great work.
The top of Boogie got nailed by several huge cedars, and it was a full on jungle gym when we got there.
Jeremy was inthere like a dirty shirt milling up a solution.
There’s going to be an optional skinny line way out on one of the trees eventually, but for now there’s this nice A-Frame.
Of course, what would an a-frame be without some nice dovetail work.
photo: Doug Chinnery
The other major project was a fairly major washout about halfway. Many new creeks have formed over the last two years all over the mountains as this pattern of intense rain events has become more prevalent. One of these new creeks picked the trail as the path of least resistance, and with help from tires was starting to move lots of material.
Instead of lowing under that bridge, the creek was now running straight down the line for about a hundred feet. It looks like it will continue to do so for quite some time.
The solution was to remove a somewhat unstable structure from nearby on the trail and recyle the material into a boardwalk thereby lifting hte bikes out of the water. Quite a lot got done, but there’s still lots more to do here.
As you can see, it was a long section and needed a great deal of effort to make, as it was much more than just a rebuild of a broken structure. Foundations had to be made and lots of ground work done to fix this.
photo: Dan Barham
Lots more great work got done, and there’s plenty more pics and detailed writeups on the event.
See the Official NSMBA Trailday WriteUp and some Awesome Pics by Dan Barham.
Gotta give a huge hand to bevy of local hotness (Aimee, Robyn, and
Veronica……Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeow!), who bravely helped me organize the food for breakfast and lunch, and managed to serve the 105 official participants a gourmet lunch of salmon burgers. Which is also a record turnout for one of our trail day events.
photo: Dan Barham
A special shout out to all the industry representation who made a point of coming out and he
lping. Andrew from Brodie Bikes was looking pretty muddy, Jeff at Different Bikes had to mind the store but made sure that he gave some free tune ups to some lucky diggers, and Noel and Tim from Knolly got absolutely filthy, then donated a Delerium frame worth almost $3K to the end of the year draw. Want to win that? Come out to the next trail day…..
See you on TNT on May 6th…
…………..as seen on Bushpilot Biking
