Eno River - MST Trail Workdays
June 5, 2010

MST - Durham and Orange Counties - Eno River State Park

Hi All,

Our next Eno River MST workday is Saturday June 5th, 9AM, meeting at the Pump Station trail head on Rivermont Road, where we have met in the past.

If you can make it, please RSVP to: fred.dietrich@duke.edu

Meeting location
<http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=3950+rivermont+Road+Durham+NC&sll=36.057235,-78.969415>

We will be doing light trail maintenance work, removing the construction flags, and painting blazes on the trail, as well as some tread work.

News:

We now have approval to build the bridges along the section of trail we have been building!! Stay tuned, we will be starting on this soon.

Summer vacation. We will not be holding regular trail construction workdays over the summer due to the heat, but will be resuming in October.
However, over the summer we will be working on approval to build the next two segments of the MST, and will be doing some trail maintenance as well.

More information on the MST, and information on other trail workdays, can be found at www.ncmst.org

For volunteers under the age of 18, we will need a signed parental release form (see attached).

Best wishes

Fred

How we build trail at Eno River

Stage 1 – By the time you arrive at the worksite the approve flag line is done with surveys tape (pink or orange) tied to trees. Small “stake flags” are placed in the ground about every 8 to 10 feet to show where the trail tread is to be placed. All of the chainsaw work of major trees is complete as well.

Stage 2 – A team of people with fire rakes or garden rakes come along and remove the leafs and duff from the ground by following the small stake flags.

Stage 3 – A team of people with cutter mattocks come along and hand dig the trail tread into place at a width of two feet wide. The overall goal is to have a nice flat trail (with a small degree of slope to allow for waterrunoff) to hike on that is root and rock free.

Stage 4 – A team of people with fire rakes come along and do the fine detail work to remove any small roots or correct any tread issues that were accidentally left out from Stage 3.

Stage 5 – A team of two or four people remove the stake flags to be used further down the trail. At the same time white blazes are painted on the trees to guide a hiker on the final trail route.

Trail Quotes at Eno River:

“Water is the number 1 trail enemy” – Bad water erosion problems lead to huge trail issues. If the trail tread is constructed properly water erosion will not be an issue.

“Quality is better than Quantity” – Great quality trail means that we will not have so many future trail maintenance issues in the long term. We must build quality trail instead of seeing how far we can accomplish in one day.