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Widowmaker Trail- Major band aid- accomplished

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Sat, 06/12/2010 - 8:27am
#1
jomissa
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Widowmaker Trail- Major band aid- accomplished
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Widowmaker Trail- Major band aid- accomplished

Working with dave bower and his team yesterday 50 people from my company did some major trail work behind VGreen yesterday.  Its the trail, when facing vg, to the left where the down tree was and the major trail blowout was!  take a look.  we cut the tree, filled the blowout (will be fully fixed later in year according to dave) cleaned invasive plants, cleared the trail from loose rock overall, and painted the signs.  The blowout  above the trail still has a lot of loose soil and rock but should hold unless we get some crazy monsoon.  Apparently, theres a plan to really fix it and fill the erosion gully with boulders etc....and get the grade back to the normal level.

Thanks to Dave, Tom, Tom, Eve, and (FORGOT HIS NAME INTERN #3) for their guidance and leadership in the park. 

If your company is interested to do this- call Dave.

 

 

Widowmaker Trail- Major band aid- accomplished
Widowmaker Trail- Major band aid- accomplished
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Sat, 06/12/2010 - 7:03pm
#2
Fish
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Nice Job!

Looks great.. what a great idea.. I will look into getting my company to sponsor something like this.. how did you go about it?

When in doubt.... .always ride.
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Sat, 06/12/2010 - 8:07pm
#3
jomissa
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how to?

glad you liked it.  I rode up and down it today....much better in both directions....down especially!

well...we have 30,000 US employees in my Business (165K globally) and this is a ONE DAY CORPORATE WIDE EVENT where all 30 k employees go out and volunteer.  We coordinate with United Way who has access to all the groups/not for profits/places in need that we volunteer fo.  So if you are not that big I suggest talking with your companies leadership about the idea and present to them on how your company can give bacck in an oganized manner.  Its good for the employees, the community, and the company....in many ways.

Coordination and logistics are a big part of this but trust me- its rewarding.  We have a big machine behind us so you simply need to scale.  Select a few places to provide service, call them, work out the details, and give people a chance to contribute where they want to....while not overenrolling one place more than another- there are SOOO many places in need in philadelphia.  I actually reccomended Wiss 4 yearsd ago as I knew we needed help here in the northwastern part of fairmount park.  its been rewarding and its amazing how much a group of 50 can do in one day! 

Yes- its easy to make excuses why not to volunteer at other times of the year so make this one count! 

PS.  a few years ago i wanted to majke this happen with FOW and PMBA but my company said no.  I understand- they want to make it special for our employees- but my dream is having FOW, PMBA, and companies like mine all working together...need to get the companies on board!

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Sat, 06/12/2010 - 9:53pm
#4
DrSaw
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Widow Maker trail/ Dumpster trail

Thanks for the work!. Yeah, that "blow-out" caught my friend off guard. Ouch. 

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Sun, 06/13/2010 - 12:12am
#5
fishnchips
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Great work but it's a shame

Great work but it's a shame your company didn't want to do it with PMBA or FOW.

I always jokingly tell people that the blowout was caused by mountain bikers! It points out the fallacy of blaming anything else on bikers as that blow out was obviously caused by source point water and a natural crevice for the water to flow. Years ago it also it also ran down the path at high speed and a mudslide ran right over the VG Inn's outdoor area; (lucky no one was there). They then re-diverted the bottom of the trail to double back on itself which is why the bend exists at the bottom. No one knew what they were doing back then, and IMO I don't think they know what they are doing now. The only way to really fix that blow out is at the source, an even then it may be impossible as during heavy rains water does run in places it wouldn't normally. That line goes way up and down the hill side. In my layman's opinion I reckon if we got a lot of rain and the place was waterlogged there's  potential for  catastrophic collapse. Half that hill could end up in the creek. If you think about it that is how the valley was formed.

 

 

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Sun, 06/13/2010 - 12:15pm
#6
dirtmerchant
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Well, Steve (Fish) works for

Well, Steve (Fish) works for a small company called Oracle. So Steve, see what you can do as this is a really cool way for a company with resources to give back on their own accords. Who cares if they team with PMBA, as long as they are out there doing some work (repairs) and not building new trails...

Jesse, that gully, which starts at the FPC Dist 3 office/yard, is slated for a huge repair this year. You may have seen their flags. There is another one closeby which starts at the Saul HS farm fields and dumps under the wooden bridge just south of the top of Widowmaker. Stopping the point source water is the first, and most important step, to stop the major erosion problems in the Wiss. Once that is complete, the trails will be rerouted to sustainable arrangements. This is the entire goal of the STI which is FOW's largest project in their history. And you can witness it firsthand way at the south end near the golf course. FOW and PMBA peeps are building the new rerouted trail in preparation for the closure of that super fun, but horribly deep gully with the berms on the walls...  

Anywho, thanks Josh for getting that project going because I almost killed myself flying down that hill by almost hitting that blow out full speed. Thankfully I had fast reflexes. And that huge tree sucked as it killed the flow... I can't wait to bomb that hill this week!  

Let the good times flow....  

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Sun, 06/13/2010 - 1:45pm
#7
jomissa
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happy to connect oracles to deloittes...

its not that they dont want to work with other groups....its just that they dont work with other groups.  i hear you.  i thought a mass collaboration would bring some nice PR to PMBA and FOW etc...but its a corporate thing and i dont want to go into it....

if oracle wants to do this...happy to make the connection to our folks.  All good for the PA region.

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Mon, 06/14/2010 - 11:32am
#8
mtrostle
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Nice work Josh, I'll have to

Nice work Josh, I'll have to check it out this week on a morning ride. I've been avoiding that climb because of the tree.

 

I'll have to rally the few mt bikers here in my office and see if we can get our company onboard with a task like this.

Keep the rubber side down.........

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