CATS feverishly whack trail, May 31, 2018, City of Loveland Natural Area


CAT scratch fever that is! This evening whack was the second of two planned prep nights for CATS as we were assigned some detailed rock work that would slow down the strategy for Saturday’s National Trails Day (NTD) event. We got back on our causeways, two built already and three in the wings. No problem as you can see by the photos (tons of photos!) that we found stone in various places and worked on Brandon’s crew causeway with much aggression. Connie’s first causeway just needed some extra end stone and then we crushed the center with fill and naturalized the area. Leigh and Connie joined us on the Scott/Leigh causeway that was giving us some trouble. The stones were a tad small and towards the end of the evening – we were running out of them. Not to mention the skitos come out at about 7 pm or so and target us juicy warm blooded creatures. The crews were focused and worked overtime again to get 95% of our work done in time for the big day! Hats off to such dedicated members. Our work shows it too!

We also had a new member come out tonight – Lynn Morales (not Monica’s sister) and she is a long time WRV volunteer and now a dual hatter….Welcome Lynn!  Fun times at El Cielo with Margaritas and food. Two members sealed their membership with us by being presented their ball caps that are so nice and clean with tags on them still. They vowed to get them dirty as soon as possible. Congratulations to our new hatters and next five will be exciting as we get you both into shirts!

Members: Bob, the Connie, Brandon, Leigh, Scott, Hans, Kathleen, Andy, Lynn

Hours:   4.75

RESULTS:   Completed all causeways for grand total of four and one small rubble wall. Still some light work on last causeway to be done on NTD

ROSES:

·       Lynn came out and liked everything and joined

·       Great crews working on separate projects

·       Good weather

·       Two ball caps presented at dinner

·       Great stone retrieval from areas

·       Patience with learning the stone – sometimes the work gets taken apart to make a tad better

·       Nice closure of trail between our causeways – meaning: they worked the crush into place at 3 foot width

·       Missed some of our folks – this time – Dean was getting surgery (we were thinking of him)

·       Good coordination with COL folks and staging materials

·        

THORNS:

·       Skitos – like to attack

·       Poison Ivy likes to invite us to touch it

BUDS:

OK – so you go on vacation and this is what happens – you get four reports behind. I am going to make this one quick as I have to move on to the others and my memory is not so great any more. Have you noticed the time is going super-fast along with bodily functions – like reading, memory, and soreness? You youngsters in the group don’t have a clue what we are talking about but you will as OA (old age) taps into everyone. Best listen to your elders and seek advice. You are not indestructible and you cannot do everything – sorry. But we still love you and remember that we were young once. What does this have to do with CATS? Everything, cause CATS is a mixture of youth and senior (notice I did not say ‘old’) humans and we care about each other and the land we toil over. Most rationale humans are doing something else in the evening like biking around all over the place, or climbing, shopping, dining, relaxing and watching TV or just hanging out somewhere – other than where we plant our flag every Thursday. Why do we do it, that is, dress up in hot clothing (does not include Brandon), heavy boots, nasty gloves, backpack, camera equipment, food, water, all these things that have weight and go out in the heat and whack trail? I have been asking myself for years why I do it and Connie too? I think we are crazy and have a following. No worries – I will not ask you to drink the Kool-Aid, just drink plenty of cool water to quench the thirst of trail. Be well my friends.

On the trail,


Go here to sign up for events: http://trailcats.org/volunteer
E-mail:  info@trailcats.org    bob@trailcats.org

 Website: www.trailcats.org

Blog:  https://coloradotrailcats.blogspot.com/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/trailcats.org    Go here to see all our latest trail events!  
Go here to see all our photos!  https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xQg_4tMEbeb6rMi6d56GwwRBzb36DQZW

-- 
Bob Johnson
Field Director - CATS
Location: Loveland, CO, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CATS assist in new trail on National Trails Day, June 2, 2018, City of Loveland Natural Area

Yikes – the day is finally here. National Trails Day with the City of Loveland on a project to line the new trail with crusher fines. Our two nights of prep helped out a lot as we (CATS) organized ourselves for a quick four hours of intense work. Most our CATS members got there before 8 am or so and had time to check out the displays, sign in, and walk the trail. We found some spots that were short on crush and were making arrangements for transfer from stronger piles of crush. Fortunately, COL had a dump truck load waiting on the side which saved the day. COL also delivered another final load of stone for our last causeway and brother did we love that pile of stone. In fact, it caused us to rebuild the entire causeway (did I use cause twice?). No worries as there were CATS members already working this baby and the new stone was huge and awesome. We needed the height for this particular causeway as it is set in a depression under biodegradable fill and the construction was set to highe
Read more

CATS move in to new play area, May 24, 2018, City of Loveland Natural Area

We left Boise to head over to Rossum Drive – North end to work on a trail system that has been outlined by the City of Loveland as a loop nature trail off of the main trail system next to Rt 34. Not sure of all the names at the moment, but we will be informed later. Roughly .3 mile loop at 3 foot wide needs to be laid in with crusher fines and have some causeways built to bring up the trail out of water depression areas. We were given this assignment earlier this year and planned on just one whack prior to NTD, but after walking the site with Jonathan Huey and recording the stone structures needed – we made this a two night whack. Glad we did as the first night, we just got going on building some nice causeways – three that is. What a night to remember. Our crews pushed on through hot, sticky and then the rains off and on as we prevailed and worked pass the mild showers. The sun and shade afterwards made the place delightful to witness up to about 7 pm or so – then the skitos get you
Read more

CATS Return to Duncan Ridge

CATS Return to Duncan Ridge 27 Sep 18 I missed last week at Pineridge Natural Area and heard all good things from that outing/whack. All the work is done and looks great according to reliable sources. Well Done! So we are back to the climbers trail and we met Joel Schwab out there onsite too. He liked the work from two weeks ago except some bonehead pulled all the red flags from the trail and neatly stacked them in a pile on the opposite side of the road. WHAT? If I were a vandal, why would I do that? Not sure what is the issue here, but Joel stayed long enough to re-pin our step assignments and we went to work with pleasure. Dean and Denny went to the top and worked up there all evening producing some really nice steps (seven in fact). The bottom crew is still working our way up and producing some good steps as well. I am amazed by the ‘rock shopping’ skills of our members to find excellent stone for steps. They can clearly see the rise/run on a
Read more