CATS Trail Project Reports

Actually more like go slower in 97°F weather with full sun. Fortunately, the weather changes and it cooled down with clouds and a ‘sea breeze’ off the lake. Delightful again and almost exactly like last Thursday. We changed the day to  Wednesday  quickly as  Thursday  has been reported to reach 102° F midday. Good call! There was some confusion the time we started today – but no worries please. If you show up – you are on time (don’t make it a practice) but you know what I mean. We are glad to see our members coming in at all times as it gives those out there a boost (like a shot in the arm) with Red Bull! We had a good night too. Seems ten of us have the grass trail building process down pat. Our measurable trail increased this session and we are now finished with the point (land out by the lake). Next week we are heading into the tree line and hopefully some shade. Nice job out there! We also found a birds nest at the edge of the lake and nearly missed piling on cuttings. We flag

Members of CATS officially started whacking trail at Lake Bodecker Loveland this evening and it was hot. We decided to work close to the swamp early before the skitos decided to come out and find us. There was a mild breeze and distant thunderstorms that kept the event workable. Though the storms came up on us and actually passed right overhead, we kept working. Cutting in a three foot trail in established field grass is rather tough work. We can all attest to that! Once we got the rhythm of trail cutting, the crew started busting out trail and playing jump frog. Kathleen was everywhere with the camera and snapped some delightful photos. Cutting out flat trail is not the most exciting trail experience but having so many pleasant members around makes it fun and productive. We took an evening break (called in by Connie) at the lake under the cliff side. There was some shade there and a bit of a slight wind off the lake. This new trail will be over a half mile in length and provide the

CATS made a revisit to an earlier project in May of 2015 to touch up or repair some over use at the Keyhole area and another bit of work was needed at a vital intersection of trails. Great night for work too as it started out with a thunderstorm moving in on us, but turned and went east, cooling down the hot summer day. We made a 26 minute hike out to the first worksite and found the stashed tools as provided by Larimer County trail crew. Dean and Denny took charge of this small group to put in some great check steps and stone waterbars to thwart future rushing water cascading down the trail. Oh the scenery out here is phenomenal and such a delight to work here. Tim and I wandered up to the Keyhole area to get started on the over-use issues. We had to restore a monowall and force traffic back on the proper trail. Also a small renegade trail was being formed by folks that don’t like using steps. Sorry – stay on the trail and steps please! As the time ticked by, we picked up Andy coming

Yes indeed and what a night! Hot and sunny but that did not stop us and the Capitols were playing for the Stanley Cup and that did not stop us. We just finished another quick  trail over at Rossum Drive and now we returned to our first project of the year and finished it. Many thanks to all those that came out this night and to all the others that touched this trail system. Well done! So, we arrived there at  3 pm  and collected our early birds – Kathleen, Leigh, Dean, Lynn and mosey down to the tie in pieces we needed to connect at the western end. We moved all the remaining stone into place and also moved in wheel barrows of crush on the culvert area. Looks so nice and done in about two hours and then we had others arrive and we moved the whole large crew down to the east end. Bob redesigned the trail a bit and everyone got to work on it. We even had a quick little causeway to build in the ditch. We had lots of corridor clearing for the remaining six foot trail and also our piece by

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