Yesterday, my dad and I went to the GORC workday at Greensfelder County Park. We met at the Tower Lot at 9:00 AM. Once we arrived, I signed us in on the county park's sheet. After we ate some donuts, everyone divided up into crews. There were four crews. We were in a crew that went to the Declue Extension to do some rerouting and de-berming. Our crew was going to rerouting a big dip that went into a muddy drainage. We were rerouting the trail up the hill, and following the contours of the hillside. The hillside was the steepest that I've ever built a trail on. Some parts of our backslope were 1 to 2 ft. high. The low the night before had been 25 degrees. There was a frost layer about 2 inches thick on the top of the soil. Once this layer was pried off with a pulaski, the dirt was fine for trailbuilding. We spent about three hours benchcutting on this reroute. After we finished that, we did some de-berming on the extension. Removing the berms on the downside of the trail lets the water drain of the trail instead on running down the trail and causing erosion. After our work was done, we hiked out on the Declue Trail. Along the way, we watched Bryan Adams and some other guys moving huge rocks with the new Griphoist. The rocks are going to be used to make two switchbacks on the Declue Extension. After watching for a while, we did a little more de-berming before we hiked out with our tools. After we dropped off our tools at the trailer, we drove down to Muckerman to eat lunch. St. Louis County Parks had got Subway sandwhiches for our lunch. After lunch, we changed into biking clothes and decided to ride the Dogwood Trail. The Dogwood was a lot like Council Bluffs was at Burnin; which was wet and sloppy. All the little dips had icy mud in them, and in spots there was ice on the trails. The rocky trail held up pretty good to the freeze- thaw cycle and the rain. After Dogwood, I asked Bryan Adams about doing Declue and he thought it might be too wet. He suggested Eagle Valley, and we decided to do that instead. We rode down the horse trail that parallels Allenton Road to the Scenic Loop Road. We followed that down to the Beulah Shelter. Instead of riding down the road, I decided to ride down the Overlook Trail. The long downhill to Eagle Valley was pretty good, there were some loose babyheads and couple big piles of horse poop to dodge. After turning right at first when we were at the bottom of the hill, I realized we needed to turn left to climb the new part of Eagle Valley. The hill was long, but pretty gradual. The hardest part was the ice covered 2nd switchback, but other than that it was great. Besides being caught in a short downpour while we were biking by the campground, the ride back to Muckerman was uneventful. Back at Muckerman, I warmed up by the roaring fire because the rain was pretty cold. Then, I ate some really good, spicy chili. Soon, the burgers were done. After devouring a burger next to the fire, I got some cake and peach cobbler. We left around 4:30. Besides being a little rainy and not riding Declue, it was a great day at Greensfelder.
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AuthorMy name is Ben. I love to read, hike, backpack, mountain bike, rock climb, and mountain bike race. Since there are so many great hikes in Missouri, I decided to make a website to describe them. The Mountain BikeI ride a 2010 Specialized Rockhopper Expert 29er. I've upgraded all the original parts, went 1x9 and dropped 5lbs from the stock bike.
My Road BikeI have Willier Izoard for road riding and racing.
My CX BikeI ride a 2010 Specialized Tricross
2010 Race ResultsRiver Trails Mountain Bike Challenge (Kansas)
1st Junior 15-18 Tilles Park Crit 5th Juniors 10-18 Delmarvelous Crit 5th Juniors 15-18 Greensfelder Challenge 1st Juniors 15-18 Rhett's Run 2nd Juniors 15-18 2009 Mtb. Race Results
ICCC Castlewood Race 5th Beginner 19 and under Greensfelder Classic 5th Beginner 19 and under Burning at the Bluff 3rd in Burnin Virgins Category Archives
January 2012
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