Trail love Sunday 11/16

ellbiddy

Active Member
So I met up with targheehucker (not sure what your policy on real name divulsion is) today to discuss some ideas/plans and we're all on the same page. So what we were hoping to do is just the standard raking/smoothing efforts next sunday, any time between 8-9am would work. We could also do a little a planning for fixing some of the really crummy lines along the eroded ridges right now.

One of the other major things I want to do is map out the western side of the park which we ignored in our past mapping session. We're not looking to do anything crazy just yet. We should also look at fixing some of the sketchy obstacles there. Shouldn't take too long so I was going to bring my bike along as well. Hopefully that crazy dear carcus is gone near the johnson park entrance. Depending on who comes we could either park by the labs off avenue E/Road3 or johnson park.

Edit: Btw rutgers hasn't TOTALLY given up on this place: http://rci.rutgers.edu/~deenr/rutgersecopreserve.htm

Also http://advgeo.rutgers.edu/ has some nice reading about the place.

Specifically http://advgeo.rutgers.edu/brochure.pdf has some nice semi-recent mapping, most trails match what we mapped, but again we ignored the whole west side of the park.

Also we might want to try and get ahold of some folks from http://freporg.org/default.aspx granted I'm not sure if any still exist since the site hasn't been updated in a while. The idea is to establish a record of steady non-invasive trail maitnence so that in the future we could widen are options.
 
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targheehucker

New Member
I am obviously in. It will be nice to get a bunch of people to this considering it is our 1st "official" unofficial Trail Maintenance get together for the REP. Hopefully folks can come out, get introduced to the park and help plan a vision for the future...

I will bring a small rake, saw (there are alot of trees down) and shovel
 

sixseven

New Member
Raking leaves is a waste of time, just ride through it. It is a part of NE riding, and with the interest level in this place no one would even notice if you did do it.

I would be in if the effort if it were centered around the jump area. Other than that I am perfectly happy with the disinterest and having a cool place to go for a spin that is nearby and underused.
Keep it skanky.
 

ellbiddy

Active Member
The trails are in such an open place that you couldn't tell which way to head. And we're not just raking leaves, just trying to smooth out some eroded parts and fix up some lines that are a little sketchy now. Nothing major, the problem with building up those jumps is that it'd have to be all done under the radar which undermines where I think we'd like to end up with this place. I don't want to popularize it, I just want to make it more rideable as a lot of it is overgrown and forgotten.
 

THATmanMANNY

Well-Known Member
:hmmm:

you'd be surprised how much warcricket and I managed to do on our last visit on the dear carcass end...
 

Deezul

New Member
I may very much be in for that. I have no experience on trail maintenance but the trail is basically in my backyard and I've only been there once with a Bio Class
 

sixseven

New Member
It is not wise to do TM while a campaign to allow work and development is in the pipeline. I doubt that anything will come of said campaign given that the place is a no mans land claimed by many. I would love to see it happen, don't get me wrong.
The reason that area you are talking about raking is covered is because no one rides there, its just boring.
There are other people that do TM in that place that are not on this board or do not make it known. I have seen their work and so have you.
Basically you have a few mountain bikers, the trouser pilots, and the occasional couple going out there to get high and negotiate the pitfalls of sex in the woods in the age of PC.
One I saw a class there, they were talking about making the world green, and how to 'develop' the 'eco preserve' into a green space. It was ridiculous to say the least.
I imagine that the reason that any long term visions for this place don't pan out is because by the time they get rolling the people involved realize that they could be riding longer more fun rides elsewhere. Even the Friends of the Preserve thing didn't get beyond making a website.
The guys who built the jumps, log rides and all the stuff that was there did get somewhere at least. He posts on MTBR, lives in Florida now.
 

ellbiddy

Active Member
Pessimistic! I'd agree no major TM should (or will) be done while talks with some higher ups at rutgers are in the works. Anything we do or plan to do has been typically just very minor stuff including a little raking and cleaning up some really sketchy stuff. If these trails get cleaned and at least the few people on here that ride it benefit then it's probably worth the couple hours it'll take every once in a while to keep it an OKAY destination.

Maybe your interests and the place don't coincide, which is fine, but no one's muscling you into going there. It's a nice mid-day lunch ride for me as it's close, fast, and really fun on a SS. There are tons of hikers on these trails, and I've seen plenty of folks on bikes here. Any TM that goes on here is a mystery to me, the only stuff I've noticed is the occasional downed tree being sawed by probably RU maintenance guys, everything else is a rotten ruin of its past self. The "friends of the RU blah blah blah" group used to do like a yearly nature hike which they labeled TM, but the take home message from them was that although not official, they were recognized by the uni as the caregiver to the woods and they would refer claims and people to them had any questions about TM came up.

So maybe this place isn't worth your time to drive here, but when a lot of folks on campus want to go for a quick mountain bike ride all they have to do is ride to Livingston :)
 
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THATmanMANNY

Well-Known Member
blah blah blah

:blah: Nothing personal but...

A part of this :argue: is making me =( and a part of this is making me :rolleyes: and the other part is making me play it :cool:. You are thinking :whoopdedo but the truth is the people putting in the time and the people (hikers, runners, & bikers) that say thanks to us out there on the trails makes me all giddy and =). But even more so you just have no idea what kind of effort & pain in the a-hole it has been for me in the past couple months and I want to give you a big fat :wedgie:. NO IDEA what is part taking behind the scenes. Not meaning TM or anything trail related. It's all the running around and talking to people and getting ish done. In the end, you will thank me down the road for sure & no doubt in my mind ;)

People go there but the problem is no one cares about it and that is what we are trying to change. It's not a no man's land. It is RU's land. There has been talk of development for school, but hey with the dwindling economy you think they can really do much now? My crystal ball tells me if it so happens they want to, that is in the far future and if enough interest in held in "preserving" the preserve like the name clearly identifies then that's just another obstacle of complaing individuals they need to overcome.

I SPEAK DA TRUF.
 

targheehucker

New Member
So just some clarifications... BTW nice to see such a response, maybe we can get some interested folks out there.

1) Rutgers University owns all land inside of the Rutgers Ecological Preserve. Thus they control how it will be developed (or not developed which is in fact their vision). There is a 10 year plan for Livingston Campus to redevelop alot of the land that already has buildings on it, while the Preserve will stay entact becoming a "natural lab and recreation area" and serving as a gateway for the Campus. Read the master plan...

2) Stewardship and planning oversight of the Park is under the Executive Dean of Cook Campus's jurisdiction.

3) We are organizing here for simple maintenance of the trails within the park.

4) We are in no way planning to cut new trails or change the development of the Preserve. This might be possible in the future if we develop a relationship with the University-I would think they would encourage a volunteer group, especially one containing University students. However, this would be the result of creating some type of relationship with the University - which we have begun...

5) The park is 430 someodd acres which is quite large for central jersey. It has a nice setup, I like it at least, but is horribly (by horrible I mean not) maintained. Quite frankly I dont care if not alot of people ride in the park - but if interested folks want to get together to make it more enjoyable for those of us that do, well hell yeah I am down for that...

6) I am not planning on raking leaves, that would be senseless...
 
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targheehucker

New Member
I am bringin a saw, shovel, and metal rake thingy (technical term). The first meetup will be primarily to ride or walk the trails to get a feel for what the maintenance situation looks like and do easy stuff like cleanup fallen trees, check out any remaining overgrowth that will be a problem in the spring, fix any washouts, etc...
 

ellbiddy

Active Member
We're still playing it by ear as Manny is making some formal headway, we might want to push back this date so as to not agitate the rutgers gods, but I'll keep you guys posted.
 
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