CoTrails General Meeting – June 12, 2012

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CoTrails Participants,
This is a reminder to mark your calendars and plan to attend the next CoTrails General Meeting on Tuesday, June 12 at 6PM at the USFS Supervisor’s Office in Gainesville (1755 Cleveland Highway).
The professional trails assessment of 200+ miles of selected recreational trails on the four districts of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest has been completed.  The final report will be available at the beginning of June and will be an important topic of discussion at the June 12 meeting.
The assessment addresses Strategic Objective #2 of the CoTrails Strategic Plan which we launched at our weekend meeting at Unicoi earlier this year.  It has also helped educate and begin training volunteers to perform future trail evaluations which we will conduct during the next few months.
We have also made progress as planned on Strategic Objectives #1 (Volunteer Engagement & Training) and #3 (Forest-wide Interactive Digital Map).  We will have updates and next steps on these objectives.
The success of the CoTrails Initiative and the future of recreational trails on the Forest is dependent on the participation of a growing number of volunteers.  We need your ongoing involvement and ask you to invite others in your respective user groups to join us as well.
We look forward to seeing you on June 12 and working with you on the trails as we continue moving forward with the implementation of the CoTrails Strategic Plan.
Sincerely,
The CoTrails Working Group

Bear Creek Trail Field Demo & Workday – April 29th, 2012

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This is the fourth in the series of field demos for April and May.  The field demo days will cover a variety of user trails and their associated problems. We learned how to access the trails, now we learn how to fix them!

This workshop will transform a trail on a road (TROAD) into a trail, making the old roadbed feel and perform like purpose-built singletrack with better water mangement, enhance user experience, aid in user conflict mitigation, and watershed hydrology restoration.  Contractor will provide R2T design, machines for implementation and project oversight of volunteers.

SPACE MAY BE LIMITED TO SAFELY ACCOMPLISH THE WORK!

REFER TO EVENTS CALENDER FOR SIGN-UP, WHERE TO GO , WHO TO CONTACT, WHAT TO BRING!

Upper Green Mountain Trail Field Demo & Workday – April 28th, 2012

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This is the third in the series of field demos for April and May.  The field demo days will cover a variety of user trails and their associated problems. We learned how to access the trails, now we learn how to fix them!

This workshop will focus on enhancing the mountain bike trail users’ experience through the use of terra-forming techniques and water management structures that improve trail sustainability. Contractor will provide design, machines for implementation, and hand tools for volunteers.

 

SPACE MAY BE LIMITED TO SAFELY ACCOMPLISH THE WORK!

REFER TO EVENTS CALENDER FOR SIGN-UP, WHERE TO GO , WHO TO CONTACT, WHAT TO BRING!

Crew Leader’s Handbood needs Comments – by April 27th, 2012

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The Crew Leader’s Handbook is now located on cotrails.org under the resources tab. Everyone can view the document now as well as the print version. They will find it easier, I believe, if the follow these steps:

After opening the document on the website, run the mouse over the center of the screen near the bottom until a round menu pops up. On the right of that menu is an icon to open the tools bar. Click that.

When the tool bar is displayed, at the top there is an icon that shows a box with arrows inside pointing out on all four side. That forces one page to view at a time. This makes paging through the document easier.

If a reader wishes to make comments, they must save a copy first. That icon is on the tool bar.

Once a copy is saved, they can exit the website and open the saved document. On the toolbar at the top, there is an icon that looks like a balloon comment. They can click that and place a comment anywhere in the document. They should include an ID within the comment so that I know who they are.

Then they can email the saved copy with comments to me (donaldjhicks@charter.net).

Please try these steps yourself to make sure they make sense to you and that you are able to navigate through them.

If anyone has any problems, have them email me.

Don

Trail Field Demo & Workday – Bartram Trail, Warwoman Dell Recreation Area, Chattooga River Ranger District

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This is the second in the series of field demos for April and May.  The field demo days will cover a variety of user trails and their associated problems. We learned how to access the trails, now we learn how to fix them!  All the field demo days after the Bartram Trail are posted on the event calender with basic info, when the final details are known they will be posted.

This workshop will focus on the use of hand tools to create knicks and rolling grade dips for better water management, but also benching and tread shaping for solving problems such as trail sloughing and tread creep on hiking only trails in semi- primitive settings. Topics include: proper transport of hand tools, general safety, choosing the proper tool for the job, loosening, moving and shaping dirt to provide for proper tread and water management and enhancing the user experience.

SPACE MAY BE LIMITED TO SAFELY ACCOMPLISH THE WORK

REFER TO EVENTS CALENDER FOR SIGN-UP, WHERE TO GO , WHO TO CONTACT, WHAT TO BRING!