Tuesday, January 26, 2010

I think I'm going crazy because I haven't been out in over a week. Due to my addiction and needing a fix, I opened the shop late today so I could at least get 45 minutes on the bike. Well, I was out for 45 but the ride didn't pan out. Good reason, though, as I ran into County Open Space staff at Hall ranch.



Previous posters are right, Hall is a mess right now. It was frozen when I was there so conditions were prime. With the absence of added moisture, conditions should be soft but acceptable for the rock garden. It's a mess because there are sections where the trail is 10+ feet wide.


Antelope is a sheet of ice and will continue to be so for some time.

I talked with the county guy about maintenance and the new "reroute" at the bottom of the rock garden, more specifically, the positioning of the rocks. They are going to look at redoing some of the rocks to A) make them less prone to t-boning and B) help to imrove general flow.


They've also temporarily placed orange cones to keep folks on the trail. They will make it up in the next day or 2 with some equipment to regrade out the ruts on the lower part of the trail. They don't care if you ride when it's moderately soft and a little muddy, but they do care that you stay on trail. I didn't ride in very far. My estimates of trail conditions are based on feedback from county crew workers.

another descriptive pic

I was pretty surprised at the conditions. I haven't ridden off road in about a month. It was good to get out but sad to see what has transpired.

5 comments:

jrog said...

Maybe I dont totally get it, but when I road yeserday it was prime all the way to the top. Boulder CO open space made "improvments" at the bottom of the trail and that seemed to be in the worst condition??!! Dont get me wrong there has been some great trail work thoughout Boulder but like I said I dont get it.

redstone said...

No, you get it jrog. It's the lower parts that are a mess. A mess because it's gotten so damn wide from folks trying to avoid mud when they shouldn't have been on it in the first place. Hikers, bikers, centaurs, etc. Not muddy now, but still wrecked. Hence the cone zone...

kjohnson said...

I think the part of the reason the trail got messed up was not the mud. I and acording to the all the tracks not many people could not tell where the trail was supposed to be when there was a foot of snow on the trail. When teh snow melted and it was a large are of mud it still was not very clear. If you want people to go a certain way down the hill it needs to be clearly marked and be designed in a way that works with the flow of the land. Random s turns in a flat open area tend to fail. Think some logs and dead trees would help direct people and would be less likely to split someones head open if the crash into them.

beingoutside said...

Is that a taser hanging off of that "random open space staffer"'s pants? Glad we're finally givin' those guys weapons so they can lay down the law!

redstone said...

He told me he leaves it set on "stun."