Boardwalk Production Begins!
Welcome to our trail crew – SCA Trail Corps Gabrielle, Miranda, Chad, Ryan, and Alexis. Follow our summer journy as we build mountain bike trails with the Cleveland Metroparks! If you want to get to know us a little better take a look back at our first Welcome Blog and you will find bios about each one of us as well as a little more history on the Cleveland Metroparks! You can continue to follow our crew and our adventures through August 15th 2014.
The past week turned out to be more exciting than expected. So far we had been working hard completing trail maintenance. This meaning that pick, shovel and McLeod were our close friends while digging drains and moving dirt. This week, however, our work turned a new direction. Now we are building new trails, or at least important portions of it. This week we began building boardwalks in a trail that will be for mountain bikers. It has been a new experience and much has been learned.
Now the measuring tape, circular saw, and electric drill are our close friends at job. We have almost completed the first of the three boardwalks to be built, which was about 60 feet long. The next boardwalk will be around 130 feet total with the thrid being a little over 260 feet long. It’s satisfying to learn how these boardwalks are built. We are getting help from the pro crew that works full time for the Cleveland Metroparks. They have helped in training us as well as guiding our work while we learn to use the new tools and master the new skills.
We also received a visit from our SCA coordinator Ted Miller. He was pleased with our work so far, which was very gratifying for all of us. It’s always nice getting positive feedback after all the hard work. We will be continuing our boardwalk making for the remainder of our season so keep posted for some awesome before and after shots. One quick note – you may wonder why all the boardwalks have not had the top planks put on yet. The reason for this is the park uses timber that they mill themselves to have a more natural blended boardwalk into the nature. All the milling for the top planks will happen all at once so this is saved for the very end once all boardwalks have been built.
This weekend we are planning to go out and explore some of the area around us, and ultimately do some hiking in the Whipp’s Ledges in Hinckley Reservation. This past week we also found a nice surprise in one of the worksite, black berries!!!!!!!!! There are not many, but it’s always fun to pick and eat them. The ultimate goal is to make jam out of them, yet I don’t think it will be possible with us eating them all the time.
