Looking for Leaf Blowers
It’s that time of year – the leaves are rapidly falling and will soon be mostly down. CAMBA has been experimenting the last couple of years blowing leaves off the singletrack trails in both the spring and the fall. Our reasons are simple, but may not be apparent to the average rider.
Of course removing the leaves from the trail exposes otherwise hidden roots and rocks making for a more pleasant ride, knowing exactly what you are about to ride through or over. But that is not the primary reason we’ve decided to blow leaves. Whether removed in the fall or the spring, a trail free of leaves dries out quicker and becomes less vulnerable to damage in the early season. This also may permit an earlier opening to the trails, as well as enabling better riding through the fall.
One of the key things that leaf blowing also does is increase the sustainability of the trails. This is accomplished when leaves are removed from the many drainages along the trails. These shallow dips and depressions were built into the trail to encourage water to leave the trail, rather than puddle or even worse, run linearly down the trail. Leaves tend to accumulate in these areas creating thick mats and form dams, preventing the drainage to work as intended. Opening up the drainages in the fall will encourage proper drainage when the snow melts in the spring and during the spring rains.
CAMBA is “taking applications” (looking for volunteers) for people to help us get a jump on the fall leaf blowing. With a lot of trail to cover, this will take some time. Obviously not all of the leaves come down at once, so we will miss some. But it has been our experience that going over the trails in the fall is well worth it and saves a lot of time in the spring.
CAMBA has two professional level backpack leaf blowers and fuel canisters that we can make available to anyone who has time to help us out. We’d like to get started on this in a week to 10 days. If you have a good quality blower and would like to tackle a segment of trail on your own, we would welcome the help. Just let us know where and when you plan to work so we don’t duplicate efforts.
Please contact
camba@cheqnet.net and we will put you on our contact list and assign a section of trail.
We can’t over emphasize the need to blow out all drains and also the backs and bottoms of all berms. This is not the same as blowing off a sidewalk or your front yard. Essentially we must clear the trails edge to edge and a couple feet or more on the downhill side of the trails.
We welcome your help and are looking forward to dry, clear trails in the spring. Thanks.
