Trail Work - Timeline

[adhd-tv]

With the new opportunity at Andres Park in Carpentersville, I am just curious as to how long does it take to cut and build 5 miles of NEW trail?  Obviously the number of volunteers is a huge factor, but what about a ball park idea with a set # of builders?  Are we talking months, seasons or?

[Red Snail Racing]

The answer is yes, it all depends.  Not only on volunteers, but also the terrain and corridor width, as well as site clean up work days.  The current CAMBr trail building philosophy is to bench cut often and rake less, which also takes more time.  For this project Mike is exploring the possibility of bringing in a professional trail building crew and spending his time fund raising to pay them.  In which case the trail could be built quickly, once the funding is secured.

As this will be our first new cross country system in a very long time, we are looking at all the options.  Once we get approval on the size, scope and requirements, we will have a much better idea on a timeline.

A vague, but honest answer.

[adhd-tv]

Much appreciated Jerry, not a vague answer considering the question.  Let's use the current Trail Crew (*core) as an example, does that help with a less vague response?  I am not being a smart ass, I am seriously interested in this.  I think more people could be enticed if they understand how much squeeze is required before the juice can be enjoyed.

If a 3rd party is contracted to build, I'd be all over helping with the fundraising. 

[Redbaron]

There will need to be a lot of bench cutting needed at Andres Park, the entire trail runs up and down the contours lines on a 35 degree slope and there is no level ground. The good thing is that there is not much foliage to remove.

Raceway will be the opposite, we will be cutting more honeysuckle and removing foliage and clearing the trail. There are only a few sections that may require bench cutting.

With a good size crew at Raceway (30 people) we may be able to finish in 8 to 12 6 hour workdays.

Andres Park will be hard work which is why we will look at our options for the final design and build. If we do it ourselves we will need to look at mechanical options and we also have the bike skills area to build as well. We may end up doing a combination.

[Red Snail Racing]

To give you an idea and this is just a very rough estimate.  It would take two to three very experienced trail builders 7-10 full days to lay out the trail, but the caveat is that late fall, winter or very early spring is the best time to do that.  Right now the foliage is up and pin flagging a trail is much more difficult, if not almost impossible in some locations.  Then you have to clear the corridor, depending on the density of the invasive plants and the width of the corridor, it could take a full work day to clear an eighth of a mile, not including a half day to burn the cut.  So maybe 20 days to clear the corridor.  After clearing the corridor, you may find you want to re-flag parts of the trail to take advantage of features you didn't see before.  Now comes cutting the tread.  Depending on the surface it could take anywhere from 1 day to one week to go 200 yards. And these numbers are using an experienced crew of 20 people, with solid planning and good trail bosses.  And there is always more finish work to be done.

So it could easily take +4,000 hours to build a 5 mile trail system.  Again this is just a rough estimate and it really depends on the terrain and the requirements of the land manager.

(Disclaimer - Your results may vary and this estimate may not reflect the views of a more knowledgeable trail builder)

[Redbaron]

The site lines are wide open at Andres Park with very little to take out to create a corridor, you could flag it without removing anything and see the line for most of the trail. Once the design is done the majority of the work will be the bench cut.

Mike