The Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association - National Trails Day Service Project in Wiss by REI & FOW 06/02/07 9:30 AM

Fantastic showing by PMBA!!! Thank you thank you thank you!! It was an extraordinary turn out overall and a LOT of work got done. In addition to the trail project, a lot of invasive plants were removed and vines cut from trees. Still, the most impressive was the trail work.
This was not an easy day to organize--on the side while working--and one of my major concerns was with leaving the project partially completed. It is not easy to estimate the scope of the project, the necessary materials and tools, etc. when one does not know who will show up or for how long or with what degree of energy and skill and whether it will rain. Imagine the position I (and by extension FOW) would have been had you guys all checked out at 1 or 2 leaving me alone to haul and load all the tools and equipment and then to explain to the park why the place looks worse than when we started and trying to figure out how and when to finish. Clearly the day and especially the trail project exceeded my best expectations and I must credit the PMBA contingent for making that happen. You guys really came through, working hard and steady well past official quitting time until it was truly finished. It looks great and time will tell us the quality of our engineering and work; we learn from mistakes as well as successes.

I haven't the time at the moment to thank all the individuals involved. It was truly a team effort. Check out some of the photos and you will see over a dozen people toiling on or near a small section of trail--and despite a good deal of planning and organizing on the fly, there was good overall efficiency, little waste, and no serious injuries. I felt really good about it all day, buoyed by your enthusiasm and energy. I worked about 9.5 hours straight beginning at 7:00 AM and felt good during most of it. (Sunday however I crashed for 2 hours in the middle of the afternoon; hope you all had a similar opportunity).

Not much else I can say at this moment. Thanks again for giving up your Sat ride time to work, and to work above and beyond the call. We will only get better at this over time, especially as we learn techniques and when Kevin Groves, FOW's new VC is on board and can focus energy directly on this stuff.

As to statistics, we had about 70 on our sign-up. I will ask Matt at REI how many he had. We hauled three loads in Tom's truck, at let's guess 1.5 tons each. I think I had 2-2.5 tons in my trailer for one load. I estimate that we also moved 5-10 tons of rock.

Below are links to some snapshots taken on my camera, some by me, some by others. As Jon said, low light. That and grabbing camera while simultaneously monitoring and participating in three different aspects of the work going on doesn't exactly bring out my best photographic skills.

Still, you get the idea.

Thanks again guys. You rock! See you out there.

Dave

http://homepage.mac.com/ddannenberg/PhotoAlbum40.html

http://homepage.mac.com/ddannenberg/PhotoAlbum41.html

http://homepage.mac.com/ddannenberg/PhotoAlbum42.html