Friday, May 11, 2012

Moving rocks at Northwest Branch


Today was a gorgeous day for a bit of trail work at Northwest branch, with clear skies and a cool breeze keeping us comfortable throughout the day.  With projects planned by local Paul Barringer and the Mid-Atlantic Climbers, we were fortunate to be working under the expert direction of Jeff and Dave, the Access Fund's traveling conservation team.  Jeff and Dave are traveling around the country from February to November, assisting with conservation and improvements at climbing areas from internationally known destinations like the Red River Gorge to small local spots like Northwest Branch.

Their main project this weekend is the improvement of the trail leading down from the parking lot, constructing steps for erosion control as well as safety.  Finding that most of the suitable rocks were on the other side of the river, they set up a tyrolean to send them across.



Some were already perfectly sized, while others required the use of hammers and a drill run by a portable generator to make them more manageable.



At least until I broke the hammer...


After clearing out some of the small rocks to create even surfaces, we laid a few of the larger rocks into place before calling it a day.



There's still a good bit of work to do though, so if anyone feels like coming out tomorrow (Saturday), we'll be back out there starting around 9:00 to finish up.  Jeff and Dave and the Mid-Atlantic Climbers will also be at Northwest Branch starting around 2:00 on Sunday for an open house event, where they'll be talking about this weekend's work in addition to past and future projects.  It also looks like we'll have great weather for a bit of bouldering, and would be a great opportunity for anyone who's been wanting to check out what Northwest Branch has to offer.  Speaking of which, I've been working on transitioning the NWB materials on this blog into an updated guide, and the current draft (posted here) is about 50% complete.  I'd love any feedback anyone has about formatting, fonts, or any of that other fancy stuff.

Better head off and rest up for tomorrow, but can't wait for another great day of work at some of my favorite boulders!

1 comment:

Michael Gray said...

A proud effort! Keep up the good work.

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