Here are some photos from our work weekend - repairing ORV damage to our main trail from our property to the west trails on Federal land. We put in a grant application last summer and received the go-ahead on the project this spring. Kathy Bietau from the Forest Service helped put the grant together. The funds are out of the DNR ORV repair fund. We are putting brush/small trees in the center of the trail and hauling in and placing sand in the trail to raise the trail to the rest of the forest floor.
Rick loaded and hauled the sand from the piles of sand dropped along our "driveway" for the project, through our property and down the trail to the project site. He had to get the truck through the deep sand on every pass in order to dump and turn around and go back for more. Our old equipment functioned better than expected and we used up all the sand on that end of the trail by the end of day on Saturday.
The dump truck worked pretty well for human transport too. The kids got a kick out of riding in the back of a dump truck.
Here you can see the trees/brush under the sand. Tad Brake was on hand to help out on Saturday. He has lots of farm and equipment experience to share along with a super positive, sunny disposition.
Once the sand was dumped it had to be raked out so Rick could drive over it with the next load.
There was also time to run some dog teams once the work was done on Saturday (and again Sunday morning.) The weather was much cooler than the previous weekend, notice the sweatshirts and jackets. The previous weekend we were in shorts and tank tops and ended the day with a swim in the Pere Marquette River - very cool running water.
Mike Monarch was on hand to help out too. He enjoys watching everyone hook up and run dogs - his sled dogs are all retired now.
Always time for a little relaxation after a hard day's work. This is a nice string of mostly Seppala Siberians in the background. Nicholas, the little blond on top of the truck, turned out to be a hard worker too and always good for a laugh.Our big week long work session is coming up beginning Saturday, September 12th through the next weekend. We are renting an all terrain skid steer and moving sand on the far west end of the project (where more piles of sand are sitting.) We are also putting a layer of shredded wood and top soil on the sand and then seeding the whole project. This will allow us to use this section of trail for incoming and outgoing teams and also to use the trail in light snow conditions and with wheeled rigs which is was not possible with all the exposed roots across the trail. We should be able to groom a 6ft. wide trail this coming season.
We have a few openings for Mushing Boot Camp the first weekend (Thurs. at 4 p.m. to Sunday at noon) of October. Check it out at www.mushingbootcamp.com
