Trail Maintenance Report (10th March Session)

Saturday 10th March saw 18 volunteers (a mix of GMBC, Meet Up and local riders) heading out to Drumclog car park to work on the next section of maintenance to the paths in Mugdock Park.  The feedback from the Ranger from our first session was great – they’re very glad of the support we’re providing.  Here’s what we got up to…..

The plan of work for the day saw us working in the couple of old quarries up on Drumclog moor before working our way into the wooded section and on to the top few sections of Rocky Rooty.  The work was mainly to remove mud from hard paths and improve the drainage at the edges to get water off the paths.

You may be familiar with the dangerous, muddy jump that appeared a while back in one of the quarries, usually taken on the way back into town.  This has now been knocked back to the original, harder surface and the drainage around it improved so that users stay to the path and don’t start widening it.  There was also another problem area in different quarry (on the way over to Rocky Rooty) where a team of the guys had a good long debate about how to fix a deep puddle of water that wasn’t draining.  Eventually the decision was made to fill it in and the transformation was quite spectacular – where there was a 6 or 7″ deep puddle that would not drain there now sits a well surfaced section of path suitable for all users and it prevents the path from being widened by people detouring round the puddle.

And a public “well done!” to Mark Forrest, Neil Macaulay and Grant Hill (& the 2 other local volunteers) who worked on a really problematic section of Riverside, installing geotextile and gravel to stabilise a muddy section of path which was cut to avoid an even muddier section of bog!  It looks excellent and should be appreciated by anyone who uses the path.

Rocky Rooty proved a more difficult affair.  There’s a lot less scope for improvements there.  Some improved drainage was installed and a couple of deep pockets of mud were backfilled with gravel.  There’s more work to do on lower sections of that path though.

One thing I’d recommend is avoiding the climb up, parallel to Rocky Rooty as there’s a very wide, long section of deep mud that’s going to be very difficult to fix.  In order to avoid the climb but still have access to the descent I’d suggest doing Rocky Rooty as a return option descending it after entering it from the Drumclog Moor car park.  Just an idea.  I think we need to change our riding habits to adjust to the trail conditions, it’s in all our interests to consider this when we’re out.

The next trail maintenance session will be this coming Saturday, 24th March, when we’ll be returning to do some remedial work on the Riverside path and finish off the outstanding work on Rocky Rooty.  If you’re interested then post up here or email me directly.

Cheers,  Graham