First Project!

After having met only once before during a paperwork session mid-October, the 2009-2010 trail crew headed out to the Spirit Lake/Okoboji area on October 18th for their first project.  The crew leaders are Michael, who works for the DNR, and JB who's a trail crew veteran.  The trail crew consists of Ceith, who worked trail crew this previous summer, and Adam, Delilah and Ewan, who are trail crew newbies.  The first project was to build some steps and a platform on a hill adjacent to a bike path that runs near Marble Beach on Spirit Lake.  From the top of the hill there's a great view of the landscape, including some pretty boggy/wetland type areas.  By building a path/viewing area, the number of people tramping through the native prairie to see the view will decrease, and passerby will be able to enjoy the area more.

The view from the parking lot near our work site

Day one was a travel/planning/strategy day, and day two brought the tough work.  The first step was to dig up the entire area for the steps/path and then the viewing area.  The viewing area at the top was the most challenging because we needed a level oval, and the top of the hill was anything but level.  Once we leveled it off we also needed to create sort of a subtle apex at the middle, so we could channel rainfall off to the sides instead of directly down our steps.  Additionally, we made sure the steps meandered down the hill in a 's' shape to avoid the fall line, again to prevent water from channeling directly down our path.

Here you can see some of the excavation going on while other crew members work to start the steps.  The steps consisted of cutter ends with flat pieces of flagstone on top, coarse gravel underneath and fine gravel on top.

Unfortunately, the rest of the week brought a lot of rain, so we only finished about 2/3 of the steps, and got pretty close to leveling the view area at the top.

We returned the next week to some beautiful, much milder weather and finished quickly in a day and a half. 

 

Our first project together, completed!