uman Powered Trails, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose mission is: “To develop and maintain first class sustainable and environmentally correct, human-powered, shared use trails for the La Crosse, WI region."
It’s time for the outdoor enthusiasts of the La Crosse area to unite…LET’S BUILD TRAILS!
Our first trail building session will be on Monday May 2 at 5:30 PM. Meet at the HPT parking lot.
We’ll be cleaning up the existing trails as well as continuing work on the Vista Trail. Everyone is invited. No special skills are required. Make sure to dress appropriately…shoes/boots, long pants, and gloves. We’ll provide the tools.
Stick around afterwards for snacks and a cooler of beverages.
May Work Schedule: Monday May 2 – 5:30 PM Monday May 9 – 5:30 PM Monday May 16 – 5:30 PM Monday May 23 – 5:30 PM Monday May 30 – Memorial Day, No trail work…go enjoy the trails!
Thanks to the hard work by HPT volunteer Ben Spanel, the expanded HPT parking lot is now being constructed by City of La Crosse personnel. This project required the work of various HPT volunteers over a 2 year period with the cooperation of the City of La Crosse Park and Rec Dept., Park Board and City of La Crosse Street Dept. The expanded parking lot is necessary as the current smaller lot was not able to keep up with the demand of trail users causing folks to park on the shoulders of the highway.
Weather permitting, the expanded lot will be completed by the end of next week.
PHOTO: Ben and Tom (from the City) discuss the project on Thursday morning.
Human Powered Trails now has an additional five trained mechanized trailbuilders!
Matt Dotta, Ben Spanel, Bruce VanEpps, Dave Lawrence and Robbie Young all graduated from two full days of mechanized trailbuilding class!
Day 1 on Saturday during the class they learned proper maintenance, as well as the best techniques to operate the Ditch Witch. Throughout the morning Mike Riter of Trail Design Specialists had the participants execute different exercises to become proficient at operating the machine. Lunch was generously provided and delivered by the Radisson Hotel! After lunch...
A spectacular group of volunteers braved the wind and cold to kick off the trail building season with the first Muddy Monday of 2009. Due to the recent suspension of trail building in the quarry, efforts were focused on the Dirt Park on Monday. Volunteers spent time raking the outside perimeter cleaning up wood chips, loose rocks, and garbage. Wheelbarrow load after wheelbarrow load of fresh dirt was hauled to the track to strengthen the jumps, bumps, and corners and to give the park a fresh feel for the spring. The Ditch Witch was also used to improve drainage in certain areas of the track.
Three Crews got a lot of work done on a perfect day up at HPT on our Saturday Trail Day.
Crew #1 Crew: Nick Clausen, Carlos Interone, Bill Bakalars, Bob Marhefke
Objective: Deberm and de-root boB trail, fix new connection from Prairie Trail to
Lost Loop, build new connection from Lost Loop up to Kevy’s trail, fix
bottom of French connection.
Result: All but one objectives completed. French Connection fix still needs to be reworked.
The
new sections we worked on are the result of the closing off of the wood
chip trail that comes down from the children's area. (Which is now
being reworked to be a pump track/skills area.) The wood chip trail
was something that the city put in to drive dump trucks down so that
they could pick up the tin drums we pulled out a few years ago. It was
adopted as a trail and has been a problem with the heavy rains and very
nasty weeds that grew up from the wood chips.
These
new sections allow riders to use the current lost loop trails more
effectively. The Lost loop was always there but it just didn’t fit.
With the WEMS race coming up and the closure of the wood chip trail it
was critical to connect onto it and use an existing trail with some
minor tweaking.
What
you will now find is a small trail near the top of Still Hill that will
direct you onto the Lost Loop. You will go down the Lost Loop as usual
but instead of taking the hard right and doing a U-turn you can now
carry some of the momentum by going straight and up to Kevy’s trail.
The top part may be tricky but Dan did a nice job going through it
afterwards with the Ditchwitch to make it a bit wider.
--Bob Crew #2 Check out the improved switchbacks on OB-1 !!
Thank Roger and his crew for making these tough switchbacks a little smoother after they worked on them on Saturday. These turns were getting a little rough from our love of the trail and needed some attention. The turns were debermed, smoothed out, re-worked a little and pounded in to make for a better riding/hiking experience.
Two crews worked from the “Sumac Corners” and down into OB-1. Roots were cut out and edges of the trail were de-bermed. Some rocks were re-positioned and a couple of “rolling grade dips” were added in spots to assist with water drainage.
More work down OB-1 still needs to be done, however. We will be completing the rest of this work over the next couple of weekly trail work nights in preparation for the upcoming 12 hour race on August 16th.
HPT wants to welcome and thank two new folks who showed up to work on Saturday. Demetrius and Eric shared their enthusiasm and strong backs to our trail work effort! We look forward to having them join us on a regular basis.
--Frenchy Crew #3 Crew: Erik & the Kids, Glenn, Robbie, Jake, Brad, Mike (aka Shotgun), Aaron, Matt, Dan
We had a great group of volunteers that went down to the new 2008 trail and finally got the mechanized work cleaned up from a few weeks ago.
We also finished the singletrack through the pines and continued on past. Everyone agreed that the trail layout looks to be an awesome trail for inexperienced users as well as still being fun for people with a lot of miles on their boots and tires.
After everyone was good and tired, Josh had the great food from Lindy's Subs all set up at the HPT Parking Lot. After everyone had some nourishment a few people went out for enjoyable rides and hikes. A few also stuck around and finally got the washouts on the Prairie Loop cleaned up and improved.
Thanks to everyone that came out and helped build trail for everyone to enjoy!
uman Powered Trails, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose mission is: “To develop and maintain first class sustainable and environmentally correct, human-powered, shared use trails for the La Crosse, WI region."
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execute different exercises to become proficient at operating the machine. Lunch was generously provided and delivered by the