August and September Trail Work

On August 13th Bill Ford and Burt Karaposteles spent a long day brushing a stretch between Scatter and Poplar Flat. This section includes Scatter Creek and three other creek crossings. Whistling Creek was the most brushy. On the same day they brushed out part of the trail near South Creek where a culvert was covered by brush. Once the trail was brushed, the culvert showed through the dirt so they built a short “turnpike” over it. On August 18th Bill and Jan Ford hiked up to complete a section of brushing west of South Creek which was not finished on Trails Day. Bill also cut out recently fallen logs which he learned about from Deb Whittemore the day before while at the Loup Loup Trail/Raffle Ride. On Saturday August 24th Bill and Jan rode up South Creek Trail to the pass, one of the three trails that MVBCH paid the Forest Service (FS) to brush, and remarked that the FS did a good job. (Thanks to Jan Ford for photos and story)

(Above) Whistling Creek “before” brushing and

(Below) Burt shows Whistling Creek "after"

brushing (Note: log on right was completely hidden

before brushing!)

Bill and the new “turnpike” over brushed trail culvert

Log covering the TRT was encountered by Terry and Steve Dixon

It was located between Scaffold and Eagle Creeks

Bill and Jan set out on Sept 4th to open the trail

Newly downed logs on the TRT

       

Trail's open--thanks Bill!

                

Wrap-up Work on The Lake Creek Trailhead Corrals

Margi Allen and Kieth Zielke wanted to finish the job they started at the Lake Creek trailhead. They went up Friday September 6th, got rained on, worked on the 3rd corral, and got rained on some more. (If you recall, that was the weekend of the never-ending deluge of the wet stuff!) They spent the night up there anyway, and Keith got up the next morning to more rain. What a surprise! They worked again on the corrals, got rained on, and after all was done they finally headed back home. Following a good breakfast at Antlers in Twisp, they returned to their warm and dry home! Now that’s dedication to the improvement of our trail system! (Thanks to Margi for story and photos)

"BEFORE"

Keith prying the downed logs out of the corral

Last pole in...

"AFTER"

A Nightmare on Horseback...

Sometimes we ask ourselves "what would I do if ____ happened while I'm riding?". Most of the time we can come up with an answer that ensures our safety and that of our horse, but there are times when we can't even imagine the situation would occur, much less know what to do about it. This is one of those times... Less than a month ago, a horse-motorcycle incident on a logging road off Mann Road outside of Sultan left a horse rider injured. The area is signed “no motorized vehicles”, yet the two horseback riders were approached by two men riding dirt-bikes on the logging road. Words were exchanged and one of the bike riders began revving his bike's engine to intimidate the horses. One horse bolted in fright and went at a dead run down the road with its rider hanging on for dear life, and the dirt-bike rider in hot pursuit about 5 feet behind the horse. At some point the horse rider fell off and the dirt-bike riders left her lying there unconscious as they rode past. The county Sheriff is attempting to track the bike riders down. Read more details here from The Seattle PI. (This news was initially shared with MVBCH from the Capitol Riders BCH chapter newsletter "Hoofbeats", October 2013.)