A clear, sunny day, too warm even for bike training. Well, it's time to bite the bullet, anyway: parts of our trails are in need of brushing out again. Particularly near the creek that crosses our training grounds, the willows, alders and aspens are growing in, narrowing the already-narrow trail cut, reducing visibility and reaching out to lash the driver as he is pulled along behind a team moving at 15 to 20 miles per hour.
Get out the swede saw, the secateurs, the pruning saw, the kelly swing and throw it all in the back of the truck. The chain saw can wait for another day; let's get the small stuff today. Grab my sidekick Tonya and drive up to the pine woods near the creek crossing. Yep, it's getting pretty narrow and overgrown, and here and there are clumps of willow and alder shooting up in the middle of the trail. Small wonder nobody can find the "old historic Gold Rush trails" of the Yukon. Even while we are still using a trail regularly it begins to disappear, reclaimed by jealous Nature.
Two or three hours of brushing out and I'm exhausted. I'm getting old and I guess I've let myself get out of shape. Oh, well, tomorrow is another day. It will take another session like this one just to get this one short stretch whipped back into shape, but it's the worst because it's close to the water. Where it's drier there won't be so much new growth.
But this is why we keep using the same old trails and never have any new ones. The amount of labour needed to brush out a totally new section of trail is staggering. The humiliating part of it is this: you work for days on end to brush out a short stretch of trail, say a mile or a mile and a half, that the dogs will traverse in five or six minutes! The Yukon is a wilderness of firekill, deadfall, aspens, alders, willows, boulders, bogs and berry bushes; to make a new trail is a job for heavy machinery (which then leaves an unsightly, tumbled, rough mess in its wake). No, despite the beautiful weather, the fall colours, the outdoor scents and sounds, there just isn't a whole lot of satisfaction in brushing out trails. It's a case of too much labour for too little return. Tonya lolls on the grass, snoozing at the end of her leash or watching the progress of a squirrel through the trees while I sweat. When her turn comes to do her version of trail work, we'll go through here so fast I'll hardly be able to see the work I did. But at least the willows won't whip me in the face.
Posted by jjeffrey at August 25, 2003 08:19 PM