Sterling Forest Trail Conditions

There’s been 10” of rain in Sterling Forest so far this month. That includes the 2+ inches that fell last night. I took a walk on McKeags/Redback/Hutch and Augusta Mine this morning. While some places that have been worked on are holding up well, parts of the trails are definitely being damaged by all of the rain. Lots of tread had been eroded and lost. They are not impervious everywhere, despite all the effort that has been done to make it so. There’s just too much runoff. It’s wetter than I’ve ever seen it.

There are many places where water is following the trail and washing it out instead of running off. Generally it’s getting caused by leaf litter building up on the edges of the trail making a tiny berm or dike. Then if the water gets a clear path down the trail it starts running and washing it out deeper. Add some bike or foot traffic when it’s soft and it gets a little deeper. Repeat the cycle with rain and use and the trail becomes an eroded trench.

Thank you everybody for not riding this morning. It was just me and the dogs out there today. Please give the trails many more days to dry out.

A few of us will be out this weekend to work some trouble spots on Augusta Mine. There’s places where the water took out a good amount of tread. I kicked and raked out some leaves today
But we really need to get back with some hoes and pick mattocks to dig out better drains and re-contour some of the bench cuts.




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Last photo is on the recently approved section of new trail. It’s downstream from the stream crossing by the job box on Redback.

Yes we will need a bridge here.

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Today 5 of us got out for a NYE trail maintenance session. We took care of 2 sections of Augusta Mine where the recent storm runoff overwhelmed the existing drainage and ran down the trail, eroding the tread. The out slope was cut down significantly and grade reversals were added to force water off the trails.


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And the ‘tail crew’ was on duty also. For those who knew or remember Gibby, he has returned to the crew!! It was his first day back on the job.

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It’s exceptionally wet. The unofficial rain gauge on Redback collected this much water since last Saturday. That’s the snow on Sunday plus the rain Tuesday and last night. Please give the park (and probably everywhere else) the day off tomorrow. Weather looks colder and it should be frozen solid Monday and into next weekend.


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The trails are taking a beating from all this rain. I put some needed drainage into McKeags this morning with help from the dogs. It was quite easy to see where it should go.


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Before shot:

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You can see a ‘dried out’ section of trail after the two drains and before the seeps let out more water 25’ down the trail.
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MuniMan said:
It’s exceptionally wet. The unofficial rain gauge on Redback collected this much water since last Saturday. That’s the snow on Sunday plus the rain Tuesday and last night. Please give the park (and probably everywhere else) the day off tomorrow. Weather looks colder and it should be frozen solid Monday and into next weekend.


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The trails are taking a beating from all this rain. I put some needed drainage into McKeags this morning with help from the dogs. It was quite easy to see where it should go.


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Before shot:

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You can see a ‘dried out’ section of trail after the two drains and before the seeps let out more water 25’ down the trail.
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Thanks for all you do. I don't get to sterling as much as I like, but I always like it when I do.
 
a.s. said:
Trails are complete shit. DO NOT RIDE. Spread the word, especially to the eBikers. It will be this way through the weekend so go find a gym or Peloton.

Thank you.
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But I just got my new bike tank for the weather!!!!
 

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I see chatter on meetups and facebook about group rides this weekend. In case we were not clear…

Trails are complete shit. DO NOT RIDE. Spread the word, especially to the eBikers. It will be this way through the weekend so go find a gym or Peloton.

Just because the forecast says no rain for the next 12 hours, doesn’t mean the shit show of the last 2 weeks and especially the last 48 hours will magically disappear.
 
I’d like to thank everybody for not riding today. I walked the loop with the dogs. We didn’t see anybody.

There’s a lot of mud and water. Including a waterfall on the slope behind the pictured boulder that I don’t recall seeing before.

It looks like the coming week will have some freeze-thaw action. Please if you do ride, go when it’s frozen.

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MuniMan said:
I was up there today, working on the trail. Things are generally drier but there are still plenty of areas where the trail is very soft. If you ride you will be leaving ruts.
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Thanks for the update, I figured the lack of responses meant sh*t conditions. Wound up riding ringwood instead
 
MuniMan said:
I was up there today, working on the trail. Things are generally drier but there are still plenty of areas where the trail is very soft. If you ride you will be leaving ruts.


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Yea, I saw you, I was the guy on an e bike that your wolf pack said hello to. I was out early enough to take advantage frozen ground, when the ground started to go soft, I packed it in. When I was leaving the lake parking lot is when a couple groups showed up. I am sure they had some peanut butter mud riding. Get out early enough to avoid the thaw.
 
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