Copper Mountain – Tread and Drainage Work Skills Training

We began our week by traveling to Copper Mountain located about an hour North of Pheonix Arizona. After the craziest journey yet to get to a worksite, involving dirt roads and nearly capsized trailers, we arrived at the our campsite. Tim Craig, a renowned SCA instructor, camped along side us for the duration of the project. We discussed the process of trailbuilding and learned the different parts of bench cut trail. The first work day involved clearing the trail by removing a vast amount of vegetation with loppers. Afterwards, each member of our team was assigned a 20 foot section of trail to complete individually from start to finish allowing us the opportunity to understand each stage of construction. After that, we began to build trail at an astonishing rate in teams of two, albeit for only a day. We built a quarter of a mile of new trail, however it was built to perfection. Finally, we built a grade reversal and drainage dip along the trial. It may have been a bit overbuilt, but it also served as a classroom example and we can be sure the trail will never flood in that spot as long as it is reasonably maintained. After a quick “trail-derby”, a friendly competition involving the scale-model construction of trail structures, we headed home with a greater knowledge of tread and drainage fundamentals.