Forest Hill Trail Care - Saturday - Jan 30th - More good news!

Greetings Fellow Trail Enthusiants,

Nathan has decided to stage the reopening of the trails in Forest Hill Park. Gone is the plan to close the entire park until everything is finished. In place now is a plan to reopen each section as it is completed.

The first stage to be completed will run from the Reedy Creek bridge, along the ridge below the school, across the cobblestone walkway, and to the switchbacks above the creek. Before this section can be reopened there are a couple of things that need to happen. First, a small crib wall needs to be built behind the school. Next, a 16 foot bridge needs to be constructed across the small creek at the bottom of the switchbacks. In addition, some rock work needs to be done on the switchback turns. The rock work on the switchback turns does not have to be completed before the section is opened.

Nathan and his crew are working almost full time during the week to get this project finished. If you can't come out on the weekend, please consider helping Nathan during the week if you have the time. Because Nathan's schedule can change during the week, it is best to either email or call him before coming out. Nathan's email is nathan.burrell@richmondgov.com. His phone is (804) 357-8897.

On another note, if you have any concerns or questions about the work being done in Forest Hill Park or in the James River Park System, Nathan urges you to contact him to discuss the issue or question. It doesn't matter if you're a mountain biker, hiker, runner, etc., Nathan wants to hear what you have to say.

This Saturday we will be working on the first stage. Nathan will have a small but very experienced crew building the crib wall behind the school. The rest of us will be adjusting and refinding the trail until we get to the switchbacks. This will include fine tuning the backslope and pulling leaves back down onto the lower part of the trail edge.

Again, please respect Nathan's wish for the trails to be closed. The trails are in no condition to be used and if ridden will just make it harder for us to finish the work. As each section is completed, we will announce its opening here and on our website. Please be patient, we are trying our hardest to get these trails open.
If we get snowed out, I'll send this out again next week.

That's it for now, we look forward to seeing you this Saturday.

The Sweco is here.

Well friends the dice tumbled and we hit a win. The Sweco arrived Monday and the boys got right to work Tuesday. As of Wednesday evening Nathan, “BigWorm” & Mike were basically a day up on the project. The workload was looking like (4) 10-hour days but the boys think they will have it finished in 3 days thanks in large part to the talent behind the blade who goes by the name “Big Worm” and the gratuitous efforts of all of you wonderful volunteers who came out in to help out in a big way. If not for your efforts the trail corridor would not have been ready and things would not be what they are.



Thank You all of you.

You can check out a few more pictures of the Sweco work in progress thanks to Greg Rollins behind the camera lens. Take a look here.

To quote Nathan from our monthly RaMORE meeting tonight “As soon as the Sweco work is done we can start the “FUN” part.” I will get into a bit of that in our next post. Nathan, {& Mike & Big Worm} who by the way pulled a 10 hour day of trail work then braved West End rush hour traffic to give his insight during the meeting tonight and provide us with an update on the Sweco work will be hard at it again for another 10 hour day tomorrow. Talk about dedication! There is a good reason that I envy the passion that these guys bring to the table. Thanks guys.

Forest Hill Park Fundraiser Event............its TRAILICIOUS

Help us raise funds for the Forest Hill park trail reroute. Stop by for a fun evening.



TRAILICIOUS is a benefit hosted by Richmond MORE to raise funds for the Forest Hill Park trail reroute project. The event will take place Saturday February 27 from 7-11pm at the Capital Ale House downtown Richmond. Free parking is available at 6th and Carey Street deck. Join us... for a fun evening of music, socializing and amazing raffle prizes. There will be a local Blue Grass/Americana band (fronted by fellow off road fixed gear aficionado Glenn A.) called Broke Bike Mountain, big screen videos of local riding and trail building and did we say tons of amazing raffle prizes! There may also be a few surprise guest appearances by some local legends as well as plenty of other great things that you will just have to be there to know about and see. So mark your calendars, come thirsty for fine beer and bring a few bucks for some raffle tickets. Admission is $10 at the door............or you can prepay on line. Sign up today; event is limited to 300 people. Click here to get your tickets!

For those of you who didn’t know about the JRPS fundraiser last year at Capital Ale House (long story short) there was a line of people standing outside waiting for the happy people inside to leave so that they could get in. Yup, it was sold out and people were outside trying to get in like it was free beer day or something. So if you know you want to be there you’d best buy some tickets early. It will sell out again this year in a bigger and better way.

So get your tickets now. Don’t be that guy who has to stand there and listen to his buddies talk about all the fun that he missed out on!

See you there.