La Costa Trail Work Day January 19th: 01-19-2008

[nick]

Not wanting to open up a whole can of worms here, but while it seems there is an opportunity to build a new, legal trail, any chance of incorporating some advanced/difficult lines, while providing alternate "bail-out" lines to keep it safe for other users? I know that LC will never get to look like some of the old flightline trails, but it would be nice to have some challenging trail features out there.

[OldDogDan]

I prefer the historic Denk Mountain name myself, but anyway, for those of you who don't go to the dark side (the "other" forum), there's quite a bit of discussion at:

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=364720

[bjammin]

Bump!

[Evil Chocula]

Have you ridden this trail? The trail with the "Double Black Diamond" sign is pretty advanced/technical.

Originally Posted by nick

Not wanting to open up a whole can of worms here, but while it seems there is an opportunity to build a new, legal trail, any chance of incorporating some advanced/difficult lines, while providing alternate "bail-out" lines to keep it safe for other users? I know that LC will never get to look like some of the old flightline trails, but it would be nice to have some challenging trail features out there.

[el_d00der1n0]

Originally Posted by Evil Chocula

Have you ridden this trail? The trail with the "Double Black Diamond" sign is pretty advanced/technical.

Are you driving back to do this?

[nick]

Yes, I live nearby the trails and have ridden out there for years. The "Black Diamond" sign went up just around the time that the trail was sanitized a bit. Gone are a couple of the drops and all of the jumps (doubles, hip) at the bottom. At each obstacle, there were bypass lines that worked pretty well.

[MTBBill]

Originally Posted by nick

Yes, I live nearby the trails and have ridden out there for years. The "Black Diamond" sign went up just around the time that the trail was sanitized a bit. Gone are a couple of the drops and all of the jumps (doubles, hip) at the bottom. At each obstacle, there were bypass lines that worked pretty well.

Talk to Rich on the trail day. He is pushing as hard as possible to retain the technical features of the place while being able to keep the trails open and sustainable. I know exactly the section you are talking about and Rich and I even talked about the land managers reaction to them. They were typical shovel built dirt lot doubles and not in the least anything close to natural looking. Those would fit in at a pump track but not out there. That section was also a touchy one as the trail also went onto private property. You will notice yellow tape and trail curving off to the right now. Remember the land managers (CNLM) out there are the same ones that tore all of the stuff out of Flightline. Rich is testing out some concepts of singletrack being used to help manage and mitigate habitat impact. For example a 1 mile long 10 foot fireroad has 52,800 feet of ground impact while a 3 mile long 1 foot wide singletrack has only 15,840 feet of ground impact. Decommission a fireroad and put in a singletrack 3 times the fire roads length and still achieve a 70% reduction in ground habitat impact. Neat! If the relationship works well here it could payoff in some of the other 1,000+ properties that CNLM also manages. It is still early on but things look promising out there. But please talk to Rich on the 19th. I'm sure he would like to get up onboard with technical aspects of that area.

[nick]

I hope that "decommission a fireroad and put in a singletrack 3 times the fire roads length and still achieve a 70% reduction in ground habitat impact" makes as much sense to the land managers as it does to all of us!

See you out there on the 19th.

[MTBBill]

Originally Posted by nick

I hope that "decommission a fireroad and put in a singletrack 3 times the fire roads length and still achieve a 70% reduction in ground habitat impact" makes as much sense to the land managers as it does to all of us!

See you out there on the 19th.

The new trail that is going in is pretty much using that concept. The new trail basically cuts out sections of the exisitng trail that are steeply graded and therefore had been blown and widened over the years to the point where it was often 6-8 feet wide and badly rutted (high maintenance). The new trail is longer and with less grade and only a foot wide and designed to need less maintenance.

The trail work coming up will be to put the finishing touches on the new trail (Rich has basically already completed it) and simultanously decommisson the current trail and plant some flora on the old trail bed to speed up it's recovery.

The "formula" came into play on this trail as the land managers basically subtracted the impact of the old stuff that would be removed then added the longer skinnier stuff we were adding in it's place. Rich actually wanted the to do more singletrack when laying out the route but he reached a percentage threshold of ground habitat impact per acre and had to dial back. The land managers also took things into account such as the illegal footpaths that were leading out to an old copper mine (Just a pile of tailing now). By routing the new trail so that it went out to the old coppermine, this should help to decrease footpaths in the area so that also got factored into mitigating the ground habitat impact.

[danlorek]

sure is great to see positive progress for mountain biking... such a rare occurrence.

There’s a part of me that thinks, what’s the big friggin’ deal… they’re so anal about allowing this or that yet you look around and that area is being annihilated by new construction. They’re literally removing mountains for housing developments there. When I finally get to the top of La Costa and I look around I cannot believe how that place looks compared to several years ago. Then I read about the illegal foot traffic and the desire to mitigating the ground habitat impact and it’s almost a bit humorous. Then, the other part of me reminds me that sometimes things just are and to be thankful for at least what I have.

[evdog]

bump

[Evil Chocula]

Originally Posted by el_d00der1n0

Are you driving back to do this?

Don't need to, the SDMBA is flying me in .

[tacos&beer]

bump !

[bjammin]

Double Bump!

Come on San Diego! Time to step up and put some time into a place that holds unlimited potential for an epic ride!

[el_d00der1n0]

I have to bail this time. I need to give more time to the fam.

Trail work is a lot of fun for those of you who haven't done it. It's very gratifying to see the trail that your sweat created.

And, SDMBA gives good schwag.

[OffRoadie]

It was fun. Did a short ride with Ben and George afterward. New trail looks great! Ben and I also scored totally awesome "Vista Del Mar Trail" jerseys from Squadra from the raffle.

Thanks to all the volunteers, sponsors, and SDMBA!

[bjammin]

it was fun. i managed to clean the "roman wall II" climbing it as well as hitting the drop then rolling down it. the new trail is a fun way to the top as much as coming down it.