By Mike Rutter, Trails Program Director
This past couple weeks found me punching away on Picture Rock as we race the oncoming winter. We have been incredibly successful with our 9am-Noon Tuesday volunteer slot and the progress shows. We have roughly a half mile to go to get to the bench and plan on implementing more events in November as weather permits. As you may know, we have been adding drains and creating bike optimized features as well as dialing in the flow. The feedback we’re getting on trail by passing riders has been quite positive and the trail is riding really well.
The following pictures represent the work we did on the second turn as we head uphill to the bench at the top (before/after is left to right). As riders entered from the top, the apex was tight and awkward from a decade of erosion. We noticed an alt line getting developed to the left and I realized that this was a better line. I also noticed that there was a nice rock drop that further increased the radius of the turn and allowed riders to carry speed into the turn with a little techy feature. I also wanted to open up the radius of the exit in order to carry speed out of the turn instead of getting routed uphill, which the last pic shows.
I spent the last two Thursdays at Maryland Mountain wrapping up the exit on Ore Chute and then cleaning up the bottom of Fast Money and the adjoining alt line. Ore Chute has been getting high praise and is running really well given the difficulty.
Fast Money was in great shape and I only had to perform a little gardening down by the entrance into the ravine and tighter singletrack section where mullein and tumble mustard had taken over. I raked out drains and swept loose rock off the trail and repaired one berm above the Paymaster intersection that was not quite up to snuff. There’s a small jump with a rock lip that needs attention a little farther up and that’s my plan next time (with more tools in hand!)