So there is indeed progress to report, but the untold story is track damage.  There are definitely chain marks popping up at several locations, which may or may not be only cosmetic – we’ll have to see what sort of rumble strip effect they have once things are cleaned up.  There are also new damage locations popping up in the km or so that they have worked so far.  The nature of the damage is that while the machine on treads can travel along the trail without causing damage, when it exits the trail its weight is concentrated on the edge of the trail and a short section of the treads, and it punches through.
Km 0.89 (top of Badger) – heavy damage right side
Km 1.22 – damage right side
Km 1.41 – damage left side
Km 1.47 – damage left side
Km 1.50 – damage left side
Km 1.63 – damage right side
In addition to the damage noted, the shoulders along many sections of the trail have been scraped away by passing machinery and logs, and the trails are looking very vulnerable to erosion.  We do not have an inspection or tracking methodology set up for this yet, but rest assured there are a lot of places where a heavy rain could either wash materials out onto the track, or start to undermine the track bed through erosion.  Evidence of these issues can be found all along the top section from Airplane to the S-Turn, which is where work has occurred so far.
In an ideal world, they would stop damaging the track, deploy with saws to trim any impinging logs four feet from the edge of the asphalt, deal with the widow-maker tree, clean the mud and gravel off of the trail, shore up the shoulders and repair the damage caused.  I suspect they will continue to pursue the imperative of removing the logs, so we would like to see this ideally:
  • As soon as a given section of trail is complete (e.g. they know they will not be dragging any more logs along it), it is thoroughly cleaned by a second team while the first team continues the clearing.
  • The damage should be assessed and plan of attack for repairing damage to the shoulder and the asphalt surface should be established and executed.
  • We see it as important that the main job be completed across the next two weeks, and that the pavement repair not wait for the full completion of log removal activities
  • We are very worried that clearing the pit loop will generate a lot of damage, and also take longer than other sections – of what we have seen, the density of materials that have to be removed is higher here than anything else we have observed.