Sourlands Mountain Preserve Conditions

[clarkenstein]

There's a tree across Blue right downhill of the Whale Rock if anyone wants to get it - hand saw would work.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll get in there.

 

[phillychris498]

Will conditions be good for a ride tomorrow? Wanna get out before the weather warms up and make a muddy mess this week.

 

[Patrick]

Will conditions be good for a ride tomorrow? Wanna get out before the weather warms up and make a muddy mess this week.

without any recon, my gut tells me there is going to be some ice at the bottom, frozen goodness up top. Slippery boardwalks.

 

[gmb3]

Sorry i missed this but I rode at dawn today (sunday) and it was frozen solid and perfect. A couple sketchy ice spots on the lower trails but not much. Boardwalks were fine. Lots of water sitting on the trail though so please stay away this week unless dawn patrol and sub-30 degrees. I only rode the 3 Amigos side of the Pipeline and that's now all clear after I cleared a few trees that came down with the ice. Didn't hit Blue though.

 

[gmb3]

Thinking of heading down there Sunday to check on things, hike around and clear the likely debris from wind & storms. Anyone been lately and have any intel on where to focus?

 

[gmb3]

Did a tree and drainage clearing mission with @jklett this morning. Lots of good stuff accomplished from pond to marker 9. Very wet. Stay away until deep freeze or a week of dry&warm.

 

[Patrick]

Thank you!

 

[jklett]

Couple of damp spots down low(the usual areas) but otherwise great.

 

[phillychris498]

Couple of damp spots down low(the usual areas) but otherwise great.

An even remotely rideable Sourlands in early March is unheard of... winter never happened in NJ!

 

[gmb3]

Couple of damp spots down low(the usual areas) but otherwise great.

Anything we can remedy with another mission like our last one or are these unfixable? Almost 1 month out from the first official TM on 4/25!
Based on this report, i'm going to guess everything is fine right now except the spots mentioned and the one wetter end of Chunky Monkey (Blue).

 

[jklett]

Anything we can remedy with another mission like our last one or are these unfixable? Almost 1 month out from the first official TM on 4/25!
Based on this report, i'm going to guess everything is fine right now except the spots mentioned and the one wetter end of Chunky Monkey (Blue).

It's the same areas between the boardwalks(markers 11-9 I think?) that are always an issue, there's nowhere to drain them to. The stuff we did last time definitely helped, without that it would've been much worse and I wouldn't have ridden. We either need to bring rocks in or reroute those sections to fix it. The rest of what I did was great but I only did red to the top then bombed down the pipeline.

 

[jklett]

BTW, the wet areas I'm talking about are only like 10-15 feet at the most and there were only 3 or 4 of them.

 

[rick81721]

An even remotely rideable Sourlands in early March is unheard of... winter never happened in NJ!

yes really - this is shocking!

 

[rick81721]

It's the same areas between the boardwalks(markers 11-9 I think?) that are always an issue, there's nowhere to drain them to. The stuff we did last time definitely helped, without that it would've been much worse and I wouldn't have ridden. We either need to bring rocks in or reroute those sections to fix it. The rest of what I did was great but I only did red to the top then bombed down the pipeline.

Those areas are always going to be wet - can't boardwalk the whole thing!

 

[clarkenstein]

Does the chunky need some leaf blower action?

 

[jklett]

Does the chunky need some leaf blower action?

I didn't make it there, I'll check it out as soon as I have a chance and let you know.

 

[jklett]

Does the chunky need some leaf blower action?

It's all good, most of the leaves have been replaced by rocks.

 

[jklett]

There's also a tree at just above bar height on blue. I didn't have a saw and it's a little too big to move myself. I'll throw a saw in my pack next time but if someone else wants to hit it I won't be upset.

 

[clarkenstein]

I may just do that tomorrow morning @jklett - thanks for the update.

 

[gmb3]

There's also a tree at just above bar height on blue. I didn't have a saw and it's a little too big to move myself. I'll throw a saw in my pack next time but if someone else wants to hit it I won't be upset.
View attachment 121437

yeah wow, i posted about that tree back on 12/7/19 and nobody has taken care of it yet. Shows how much use Chunky gets lol. Thanks for offering @clarkenstein, it would be appreciated.