A few of us will be out at the top of the new section of Mad Dog's Pumpkin Patch Trail with a rock drill to create a new bench section in a rock face area that slid out during the winter. If you're around, stop on by. GPS location is:

N45 30.940 W123 34.881

This is only a couple hundred feet below the dirt road leading to the trail (off Fox Creek Road). The slide can be seen on this ride report from last December:
http://www.omraoffroad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9535

You'll see my white truck with the OMRA Trailer parked on the dirt road. Maybe see you there.
-Tom

I met up with trailmeister Lyon Payne at Coleman’s Shady Rest (where’s the trees for shade?) for breakfast and we discussed everything from Arizona riding to trail issues. We finished and headed out to the landing above the new, lower section [that Lyon built] and proceeded to unload the heavy equipment and deliver the hurting end to a “boulder situation” only a mere 300 feet down the trailhead of the section that Lyon built.


(Dave Klug photo.)

While unloading the equipment from the OMRA Trailer, a bunch of buds showed up: Al Narvaez, Scott Wilson, Dave Klug, Roger Waddington, Kerry Owen, and Jeff Proctor. Oh yeah, and I had my pooch, Cali the Wonder Dog, with me too. They helped Lyon and I pull out the new rock drill and get things set up, then they continued their awesome day of riding.

Lyon and I made our way down to the new slideout. I had been there with the previously-mentioned riders just prior to Christmas and we had a helluva time crossing the slideout. It turns out that Lyon had been down and benched in the slide area, so now it was nothing. The worst part was the boulder sections, of which we were ready to put the new rock drill to the test.



Lyon and I proceeded to put the hurt to the offending rock sections. Neither of us had ever used one of these bad boys before, but we had plenty of enthusiasm. Wow, that was a LOT of work. After a couple hours of work (and Cali barking from all the noise), I was chiseling away when out of the blue (just like in a scary movie), a hand was suddenly on my left shoulder from behind – I just about filled my drawers! Holy crap! Turns out it was Richard Chapman and his friend Stewart. After swearing like a drunken sailor and coming to my senses, Richard pointed out that he’s spent plenty of time using a rock drill, then proceeded to show us the finer tips (pun intended) on proper rock-drill etiquette. Wow, it really helps when you know what you’re doing – guess we should’ve RTFM (read the manual) before we started! We had one helluva time getting the Rokon and rock drill back out due to the mud and steepness of the trail. We don't want this trail to get ruined, so this trail will be marked as a one-way, so all of Lyon's work does not go to waste, FYI.






From there we went up to another fresh washout section on the original Mad Dog’s Pumpkin Patch Trail and benched in a trail through the middle, which since the rock was basically shale, was fairly easy work with the rock drill and a grub hoe.

When we were done, Lyon and I had each performed 8.5 hours each, plus two hours each from Richard and Stewart totaling 21 volunteer hours for the day! This weekend is another volunteer OMRA Trail Day and we hope that you will show up for the fun and help!
-Tom

Glad you guys worked on the upper section too, it was rather sketchy for us to get thru. We probably spent 30 minutes or so with sticks and rocks trying to chisel out a better way thru and then higher up on the trail there were a couple big trees down we had to jump over.

Here's Scott riding someone's Husy thru with Kerry playing spotter:


It was tougher than it looks, the drop off in back of Kerry was daunting.

DK

Major thank-you's to Tawm and Lyon and their "helpers" ....!
There will definitely be places for you guys to go riding up in dirtbike heaven.

We're were going to swing by as well - but ended up staying on the fireroads and very easy trails for the day to avoid over-stressing Keefy's repaired shoulder. But he did great - and his new scoot did even better. <g>

Cheers! E-Ticket

Great work!

Thank you for spending your weekend to benefit the riding area and all of us. Kudo's to you guys! Where's the dynamite?