How 'bout these two old xxx's?* Just under three hours of mid-day trail building to complete a brilliant by-pass. Say 850ft maximum distance taking into account a bit of meandering nuance. Say 240ft relief. Not a bad job considering at least 140+ years between the two of 'em...
(*Add your preferred superlative or expletive)
Built out of necessity. The final several hundred feet of this long traveled six mile route had steadily lapsed into a beyond technical rocky, washed gully. Recently, a few large cross trail windfall trees sealed the final demise. The only solution was a detour. Only one viable route via a ninety degree down ridge diverge to the west.
Woefully, the trail is additionally flanked both sides by a forest of heavy greenbriar thicket. Short of a brush hog, not a particularly appealing project considering all hand clearing...
leave it up to always thinking "our boy Howie" - he picked up a rotary brush-cutter blade attachment for his gas weed wacker... we'd never seen one before...
speaking from the perspective of having cleared and maintained ample trail over the years, all by hand, a most impressive tool... it made short work of the heavy briars...
A rough profile scaled from USGS topo...
Typical routine end result, indistinguishable from a deer trail...
a bit steep and technical... kept it a bit narrow thru the saplings ta' boot, just clearing the bar ends...
ditto a sloping log hop for some final fun and frolic...
test pilot sent out for the inaugural run...
Nice work!
