CATS Trail Project Reports

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...

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 ...

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...