TA Report: Day before the Snow at Trumbull

Date of Activity: December 19th, 2009

Day before the snow

Trail Ambassador Rich Coffey

mtnbikerdad[at]yahoo[dot]com

Trail Ambassador Mark Lurie

Town: Trumbull

Location: Pequonnock River Valley (aka P-Valley)
Trail(s) Ridden: White, Blue, Yellow, Red, and few bootlegs
How did you use the trail?: Mountain Biking
What was the time of day?: 9 am
Duration (Hours): 2.5
Distance (Miles): 7.5

Observations & Encounters: Met Rich, Larry, and his buddy at Daniels Farm Commuter lot and it was freaking cold! Must have been hovering around 20 degrees. Our intent was to ride and survey some of the fall line descents on the trails in the ledges section and to figure out what would be the best strategy for some reroutes and repairs on these sections.

If you are a frequent rider at P-Valley you will know that Trail Maintenance here has slacked off and starting next year Rich is working on organizing a group of riders and hikers, and anyone else who wants to pitch in and lend a hand at fixing these trails in order to make them more sustainable. Check out Rich's assessment of our Day Before the Snow Ride. He'll be building an interactive TM site for Trumbull similar to the Mianus site shortly.

In the map below, we looked at three areas, the first two which are in pretty bad shape are along the red trail in the ledges sections of the park. There is another section that I wanted to look at but missed is a descent on the yellow trail in this section of the park, too. The last area we looked at was a possible reroute off one of the bootlegs to add a little variety and possibly hook up with the trail that parallel's the entrance to the Town of Trumbull's raw materials handling area.

#1: Red Trail descent from the ledges to the second stream crossing (the first being the one as you enter park from Daniel's Farm). As you descend on the red trail, where after it connects with the yellow trail it hits a fall line descent to the stream. Just past where the two trails come together there is a really nice flat rock that people have been rolling in the past. This is the anchor point for the reroute.

The base of the roller is seen in the picture above on the left and in the shot below it's a view down the roller. There will be connector to the old cart road that climbs up from the stream crossing for those wishing to link directly with the Yellow Trail after the crossing. Coming off the roller, we'll bench a trail to the west of the current, washed out section of the red trail and hook back up where the trail crosses the stream today.

In the picture below, you are looking up from the stream where the cart road crosses the stream (on right and in yellow) and further to the left but out of the picture is where the re-route will using the existing crossing. In the back you can make out where the roller is (which I have pointed out in the picture).

#2: Second Red Trail Descent. What's confusing about this descent is that when you ride up to it, you are actually riding up to some boulders that are not where the trail goes, rather it's another boot leg trail. Thus, the idea would be to close these little bootlegs and funnel users into the originally intended path, underneath the boulders and rather turning into a steep fall line descent, the re-route cuts across the slope, makes a switch back turn and picks up the original trail ending up at the intersection with the Yellow Trail.

What's cool about this idea (shown below) is at the end of the green line on the left you can make out a section of the really big, flat rock that quite a few people are rolling.

#3 The last section, not pictured, would be to add a little differentiation to the existing bootleg trail and possibly use it as a connector trail to the un marked trail that parallels the white trail to the east.