I left the house at 6:45 am heading for Town Creek to help with the first day of this project. The weather outlook was not promising, and I drove through multiple light rain showers most of the 85 miles to Town Creek. I wasn’t very optimistic about the rain holding off for the workday.
I arrived about 9 am, USFS rangers Jeff McDonald and David Fowler were already on site, along with GARTRA Trail Captain Chris Fowler, and GARTRA members Shannon Wood and Logan Bashford. Holly LaCoy pulled in a few minutes after me.
After getting unloaded, Jeff McDonald led us in a Safety meeting and outlined what we would be working on. 
Jeff and David had already done a lot of ground work in identifying 5 trail sections that required hardening. Five pallets of large pavers had already been delivered to a staging point in the woods and a dump truck load of crush-n-run gravel had been dropped on the Loop-B access road near the closest service trail.
Our job for the day would be moving lots of the gravel and pavers to the problem trail sections. Sounds [EASY] right? Well, maybe sort of. Fortunate for us, Shannon Wood brought his John Deer tractor with a front-end loader. That saved loads of time and effort loading gravel in the USFS Gator vehicle, and GARTRA’s 4-wheeler and work trailer. Each load of gravel is approximately ¼ ton.
The next task is then getting the gravel to the work sites on Loop A where it is needed. Keep in mind that Loop-A is a tight, rooty, and rutted, single track trail and with recent rains, very soft and slippery. And as we were getting started it began a very light drizzle, just enough to remind us that there could be more to come. On Chris’ second load out, the trailer tipped over and we filled in a hole in the trail without too much additional effort. Weren’t we lucky! Don’t get me wrong, the hole needed filling in, it just wasn’t in the original plan. Once the gravel made it to a planned work site, Holly, Logan, and the rest, went about unloading and spreading the gravel.
After several runs of moving gravel, we started moving pavers from the staging site to the trails as well, in preparation for the next work days.
The sites where this hardening is being done are typically places where erosion has left deep trenches in the trail. Crush-n-run gravel will be used to fill in the trenches and will be contoured so that large open patterned concrete pavers may be laid down. Then additional crush-n-run gravel will be used to fill in the gaps and hold everything in place. Later 4×4 timber may be used to frame the edges and hold the pavers tight, where needed. This technique has been used in other sections of the Town Creek trails, and seems to work very well.
We broke for lunch around 12:30 pm where Chris laid out a great make-your-own sandwich buffet along with apples, bananas, drinks and more. This is where we get to relax for a few minutes, visit and get to know everyone better. Also did I mention that the light rain had stopped and we were drying out?
After lunch Jeff McDonald took a poll to see who could continue to work until at least 4 pm. It was unanimous that we were all in to continue. After all, where else can we be out in the woods on motorcycles and ATVs having so much fun?
by Bruce Dreher