Winter Storm Woes!!

The recent winter storm did a real number on Chief Logan State Park. Rangers estimate that nearly 100 tree have fallen in the park and we think that's just near the main roads of the park, not the trails.

The park was closed for a couple weeks while AEP crews cleared and repared power lines. During this time LMBA was able to begin assessing the damage to the trails. We can see alot from the main road, counting around 50 downed trees on the trails and this does not count the 2 longest trails (wilderness and backbone) along both ridges of the park.

All the extra work to clear these trees will make it more difficult to prepare for the April 11th WVMBA race but we are confident that all the work will be completed. We had started work on a new trail that we had hoped to complete and include in the race. This is now questionable and we'll update that possibility as the work progresses on all the clean up.

We have had a couple tree cutting days and have managed to clear 15-20 trees, a great start but a long way fron complete. As luck would have it there are alot of tree "toppers" onthe trails. When the canopy of the tree lands on the trail it takes much longer to clear opposed to just the trunk crossing the trail. So far we are seeing about half of the downed trees having the canopy on the trail.

Pictures below are from some of the work.

Work on our next trail has begun!!!

You've heard of epic trail rides, this is going to be an epic trail build. The red line on the map is a very rough projection of what we have in mind.

This trail will begin behind the wildlife exhibit and wrap all the way around the center ridge of the park and end up above the park pool connecting to the coal mine trail. Currently there are no trails on this ridge of the park.

We are estimating that this tail we be in the neighborhood of 10 miles and will probable take a couple winter seasons to complete.

We plan on breaking the work up into smaller sections with access points along the way so riders and hikers can utilize the trail in distance increments that suit there needs.

The first section that we will complete will be from the wildlife exhibit to the Guyandotte Beauty trail. If completed in time this section will be incorporated into the 2010 WVMBA points series race in April.

Check out a few pictures of the first days work, please note the perfect working conditions.