Trail Maintenance

On Sunday, May 15^th, Roy Scarisbrick and Carol Guthrie organized a group of keen mountain bikers to do some trail repair work for Friends of Kananaskis on the Cox Hill trail. We arrived at the Dawson parking lot at 9 am to meet Jeff Eamon, trial maintenance foreman, for Alberta Community Development, Parks and Protected Areas. Jeff and two others from his crew were there to direct and help work on the trail. We arrived to find a truck loaded with shovels, rakes, pulaskis (an axe type tool), saws and wheel barrows. We each grabbed a couple of tools and set off up the trail Our main task was to rework the trail to reduce water erosion and to bring the trail back to the original width. Over time trails becomes dipped in the middle resulting in a channel for water to run down which leaves deep runnels and over time washes away the trail. So with our pulaskis and shovels we dug away the outside berm and sloped the trails to the outside so the water would naturally run off the trail. This meant a fair amount of soil, rock, and root removal and then raking the excess material down the slope. We also put in several drainage ditches on the steeper sections to ensure that water will not run down the trail.
Swinging Pulaskis - the following pictures shows the crew leveling the trail, digging roots and rocks and sloping the outside of the trail.
Rob Beckett	Reid Snitka
Glenda Misurelli	Roy Scarisbrick
Perry DeWit & Reid Snitka removing old logs and sloping the outside edge of the trail	Chris Gilham, Kim Mustard, Glenda Misurelli re-defining the trail
Myrna Johnston, Barb Kuester, Ursula Wohlfarth working on the outer edge of the trail	Barb Kuester raking the debris
Myrna listens as Jeff Eamon, our trail boss, gives us directions	Ursula puts finishing touches on trail
Andrea Bell with the McLeod rake	Lucien Cerny pulling excess material off the trail

Another problem was trail braiding. Because of the dips in the trail, big mud puddles would form after each rain. Trail users tend to walk or ride around the mud puddles forming new trails and new problems. So after cross - sloping the trails and putting in drainage ditches to alleviate mud puddles, we spent time bringing the trial back to its original tread width.
Chris Gilham	Kim Hooper working to bring the trail back to its original width

George Ruck, Kim Hooper, Andrea Freeman	Andrea embeds rocks into the trail

Andrea, Roy & Reid take time out for lunch	George moving rocks into position
Big boulders were dug up and moved into strategic places to confine trail users to a defined path.

Reid, Lucien and John King get serious and use big boulders to narrow the trail.


Here's the gang removing the outer berm, cross sloping the trail and making sure the water has a good grade to run off the trail.	Finished trail section.
It was a lot of hard work and we didn't seem to cover a lot of distance, but Jeff told us that the work we accomplished will be self maintaining for a number of years. It was very satisfying to know that one day of our time could make so much difference. Friends of Kananaskis holds regular volunteer work parties on the second Saturday of every month. Job duties range from litter pick up to pruning to trail surfacing so there's something for every level of fitness. So whether you're a mountain biker, hiker or skier and would like to maintain your trails, you can contact Erika Jensen at 403-678-5500 ext. 279, or send an e-mail: trails@kananaskis.org. Visit their web site at www.kananaskis.org.