- The re-route involved building new trail along a traverse and grade reversal in order to shed water off of the trail.
Six volunteers joined the Trail Volunteer Coordinator on the morning of Nov. 4 to conduct some erosion-prevention maintenance on La Tierra Trails between Junctions 1 and 2. The work included a re-route of the trail around a gullied section in order to integrate a more natural “grade reversal” to shed water off of the trail.
Re-route to the left, abandoned gully section to the right.
The crew deliberated for a short while before settling on a final strategy to route users away from the hopeless gully, onto an enjoyable and sustainable replacement section, and smoothly back onto the existing trail again. Elsewhere, on more “workable” sections of the trail, we conducted our regular de-berming and nicks to help drainage off of the trail.
More traditional de-berming work, great where the trail is workable.
A purely subtractive “nick” designed to release water down and off the trail to the left. View of the Caja del Rio and the Jemez Mountains in the background – Not a bad place to spend a morning!
We are pretty happy with the result of the re-route, and we are sure most users will be, too, if they happen to notice. Nevertheless, Margaret Alexander’s dogs reportedly still favor the old route!