North Face/ Smokin/ JFK Blog

I have to plead guilty AWOL as car and then back problems kept me away..

Don Macleod has reported that things went well, with Zac motoring the tools up the hill, and many thanks to Jono, Patrick, Bryan, Todd, Colin, Hugh and Don!!


Next weekend there is no scheduled work party (shock and stunned amazement) as the Tracks dudes are all out and about saving the world, however the week after it is Business As Usual on Saturday 22nd May  

Happiness!

 

Today a band of the strange and committed set off for the second session scouting the JFK track, from the bottom up.

We had no wind at all, and it was mostly fine but cool in the shade, warm in the sun.

We reached our objective for the day, which was the grassy knoll. shortly after after lunch by hacking through three kinds of prickles (Gorse, Barberry and Blackberry) and also navigating around many natives- including Pongas, Cabbage trees, Werwera and other things with green leaves. We arrived within half a metre of where we wanted, which is good going through 2m high gorse! Ian’s GPS and the inclinometer for the win.

Many thanks to the perpetrators: Ian, Don, Jono and Rob.

This part of track will be longer than the official maps would lead you to expect, as there are ridges out there that are not shown on any contours. This is situation normal for the North Face, which means that scouting and then piloting is a must before really knowing where a track can be placed.

Walking about the grassy knoll and rummaging around the nearby trees and scrub caused A Plan To Emerge. This would be for riders to arrive at the Grassy Knoll after 4 sweeps across the hill above, and then turn into the first of 2 Big Sweeping Turns (known from now on as BSTs). I prefer the term “big arse corner” but there may be children watching.

The first BST would be a big 180 degree left hander, about 10-12 m in diameter, with a 5% grade all the way around. There would be a straight bit of about 10m then a slightly faster 180 degree left hand BST of 10-12m diameter and about 7.5% gradient which would run around a large Ponga.

This would exit at the bottom of the grassy knoll where we could have a slight uphill or flat exit, onto the gently winding trail (steeper at 10%) for 50m down to a ridge.

Here they would find a right-hand bend on a ridge that is almost 180 degrees. A healthy berm on this one would be good, and there seems to be plenty of space.

From there the trail sidles the hill at 5-10 degrees for about 100m, then climbs slightly for the next 50m, (we had to avoid a very high, somewhat vertical embankment) and then runs completely flat towards the road for 40m, meandering around trees and shrubbery. Make that gorse, for now.

Riders /walkers/runners and dogs-on-leads would then simply cross a 4wd road then plunge down Smokin’.

So this has described the lower 250m of the JFK track as scouted.

The top of the grassy Knoll, looking across to BST 1 (observe the pink tape) which will be a large U-turn to the left across most of the photo.

The exit of BST1 towards the entry to BST2, which would be at the end of the grass about where the flowering gorse can be seen near the middle and right in this picture.

Entry into the right hander BST 2 with the Ponga just visible

And here is the exit area of BST 2, right at the bottom of the grass.

And then the track would motor down the hill in a bendy line, it looks inviting:

And here is the corner on the ridge, firstly looking backwards, up the hill:

And now in the correct direction looking down the hill, from the ridge:

It will be interesting to compare these shots with the finished article this summer.

One day all the normal flowy goodness that has come to characterise North Face will be applied to all of this. Happiness.

Above all of this, the trail would begin with a left hand switchie right by where North Face ends by the road, and do probably 4 sweeps back and forward across the hill: about 325m of entertainment. The total length is starting to look like 575-600m

A map. We like maps.

Should be fun!

Next weekend we will be back at the main North face trail on Sunday. If it is fine we will be heading into the Valley of Switchbacks, if it is wet we might do some dirt compacting higher up.

See you there !!

*pps: a little birdy tells me that a corperate grouptoday cleared about 120m of the scouted trail today.

Top Effort!

More news on that soon.

Mean while we have oranised great weather for Sunday :-)

This morning dawned fine and sunny, however the expected cold and rain arrived at 9:15- with fat drops of water falling en masse from the sky. It did clear for a while, however the track was interestingly slimy.

A few keen regulars were away doing Crazy Man things, so 5 brave souls ventured out to dig the track: Thanks to Hugh, Don, Matt, Lewis and Rob.

The soggy weather was ideal for looking at where the track drained well or otherwise, as proper rain has rarely occurred since we started the main build last October.

We worked on many areas of the track, which I have marked (umm those that I remember) with the classy yellow arrows.

A few muddy riders slithered their way past, with some riding North Face for the very first time. Some rode by twice, so they must have been enjoying the slippy conditions!

No photos today as cameras full of water may not work well.

At around 2PM another big rain shower arrived, drenching those who were not waterproof, and they seemed keen to avoid being frozen, so when it cleared we gathered up a huge amount of tools that had been left about and wandered off.

Hot showers and clean, warm clothes are pure luxury.

Tomorrow a few wild insane and possibly delusional people will be scouting JFK,

and next weekend we will be back at North Face next Sunday, May 9^th.

Hopefully we will have a huge turn out, as it looks like there will be no work party scheduled the weekend after (people away, travelling the Earth, being Knighted, collecting Nobel Prizes for world peace, that kind of thing)  for the first time in 13 months, except for Christmas..now that is enthusiasm!

See you there!

And North Face gets some exciting value added extras....

The first work parties on this track were way back in umm, (checks the blog), just last month, the 9^th March!

6 weeks later the trail is built. In fact all it needed this week was some finishing of the last few metres.

While only 375metres long, this track can be a gentle meander through the trees, or a blast through the forest: it works really well either way.

Plenty of rises and falls, great visibility and 4 bermed switchbacks (built from the local rocks) are features of this track

Everybody announced that they were happy with SMOKIN, so after lunch we headed up to look at the bottom of the main North Face track.

The lower 70m was widened and given a clearer bench (flat ridable bit), and the uphill bank was angled back to provide a better sight lines and space.

Value added extras?

The last big bend on North Face is a right hander , which has a relatively flat area to the outside. In months gone by we thought of starting JFK there but that changed, so we had a flat area just waiting and growing gorse.

So the idea was to head the track out to there and loop it back, adding fun, value and thrills.

Clearing was done, and some of the ground was revealed to be locally steep, full of solid rock, or growing large gorse stumps. And a resting place for a goat skeleton.

All pretty normal, except for the ex former goat.

This extra “keyhole” will take a while to build, but meanwhile the existing corner is unchanged.

Photoze:

For some reason I completely forgot to take any photos of the crew at the completion of Smokin. Odd.

My apologies.  However...in the afternoon..

Here is a map of the keyhole corner on North Face that the gang decided could run out and around a flattish bit:

Colin, Jono (hiding) and Lewis clear the entry into the flat bit.

Which turned out to be anything but once the gorse+barbery was removed. 

Lumpy rocky evilness was found. Such is the way of Makara Peak!

Here Ian ponders a violent end to some mighty gorse stumps:

Meanwhile Bryan worked on the last 70m from that corner to the road junction:

widening the track, making a nicer bench, and angling the bank back for better vision and reduced kneecap hazard........

The rocks on the edge are to discourage riding there until it packs down: those rocks will be flattedned down to form part of the track.

Here is a photo of the exit area of the keyhole corner looking uphill (as in, the wrong way)

Martin appears to be.. phoning home ??

The final form of the corner will depend partly apon how much rock everybody is prepared to demolish with picks, and the need for a very tough outer edge- however the aim is to make it fast :-)

Huge thank you to the 9 people who dug corners, chipped rock, moved dirt, packed berms, attacked gorse and benched track today.

Without your help, and others like you, these tracks would simply not exist.

Cheers,

Makara Peak tracks!!

The trail we are currently calling JFK would join the North Face track to Smokin.

This is not an official track yet, however we went scouting today to see what was actually on the ground out there. We had bush bashed through there once before, but that was to just find the Grassy Knoll and see where it was, and to take some measurements of heights and distances down to the road and up to North Face.

The next step after we have scouted the whole area is to have the pilot track approved by the good people at the WCC (as after all they do own the land), and we will need to have this process finished by October if we want the mightily enthusiastic Tuesday night digs to get stuck into it once daylight saving kicks off again.

The trail would be about 600m long.

We bashed our way through about 100m of scrub: mostly tall gorse trees and natives, looking to see where the main ridge was. This would be a limiting point of the trail.

We did not quite get there, (it was a lot further away than the maps would have us believe, which is good) then we backtracked a little and climbed up directly up the side of the hill to the sunny Grassy Knoll, and came up with some awesome ideas for using this area for some huge sweeping turns while we sat on the grass watching riders navigate down North face.

Linking the trail together from what would be a few sweeps across the face of the hill also seems to be quite straightforward. He said hopefully.

Time will tell!

Here be a map, the RED stuff has been scouted, the red dots are a good guess about how the trail could do two huge sweeping turns down the grassy knoll, and the dark red dots are an indication of how the trail would sweep down the hill..

Meanwhile, next Sunday we need to spend a few hours on Smokin, and the main North Face trail, so we might start high (after the Women's race) then work our way down after lunch.

Cheers!

 

Rob

Makara Peak Tracks

 

Gorse stumps and prickles were removed, trail surface was cleared then benched, corners were devised rollers and berms created, and I guess 60m swoopy flowy single-track was made. (correction: Ian tells me is was more like 125 metres!)

All the usual North Face Project stuff that has been going on since last October.

But the best bit is that this wee trail is FANTASTIC to ride !!!! 

As with all of North Face, riding the trail Smokin Fast is not for the unskilled nor faint hearted, however more sensible riders will still have a tremendously good time.

Next SUNDAY we will be spending a few hours finishing the last 10-15m and then go do something else. Ride our bikes mebbe?

We may start a little later than usual so we can watch the Women’s race down the main North Face trail    :) 

Fotoze.
These were taken at about 3pm, couple of hours before we halted proceedings.

We started cleaning up the trail from about here:

and then along here:

And then through here:

And then

 

and through to the left hand turn:

and down the hill parallel to Rdiegeline extension:

and then along here:

and up here:

And where these guys are working away:

 

The trail ends just  beyond. It is ridable, however the last few metres are not totally beautiful yet. We will be back next Sunday to fix that!

Cheers,

Rob

MAKARA PEAK TRACKS!!

 

Today was a day for digging holes and making berms. And clobbering rock.

 

The exit of switchback 4 was lowered and the dirt used to make a table-top further along.

The entry to switchback 5 was widened, (no small matter as the bank is solid rock), and the track below which was a bit narrow and scary was widened, and flattened.

The dirt was used..on the exit berm of the switchback.

 

Extra swerves were added (although that almost goes without saying!) and the dirt was used.. on the exit berm of the switchback.

 

The left hand kink half way between switchback 5 and 6 was.. bermed..  and a great deal of time was spend by frankly possessed people chipping rocks on the slightly fierce switchback 6.

The entry is now 50% wider and the rock was used.. on the exit berm of the switchback.

 

A small roller (a dip then rise in this case) was made before this corner (another swerve created ), and dirt from that was used .. on the exit berm of the switchback.!

 

Careful readers may have noticed a pattern forming.

 

Much fettling and landscaping was also done further down the track, so every time your ride the North Face it should be different, and better.

 

We had nine people help out during the day, apologies for not listing all your names here: but cheers to the guy who interrupted his ride to help out , his time helped to create some really nice wide smooth clear single track..

 

We are just over half way down, so in a “couple of months” the 1620m of North Face should be done, and then all we can do is wait to see what winter does. But there are plenty of other things for trail pixies to do...

 

Loads of people were out riding North Face today, I imagine a stack more will be riding it when it has a proper start and a proper finish (and an extra bit in the middle).

 

The next North Face dig day is Saturday 17^th, drop by and help for a while if you can- if not say Hi on your way by J

 

Work was done here, as well as a lot of areas lower down:

 

 

Here Jono surverys the rock carving on the entry to switchback 5:

 

 

The exit of the corner has more inslope, is wider, has a bigger berm, but now has more room on the inside for the "more sensible" riders:

 

 

And further down the trail was made a lot wider. The existing (second cut!) had pretty vague edges and a lot of soft dirt about, creating the illusion of a very wide trail.

 

This was fixed by the use of picks, grubbers, shovels and wheelbarrows.

 

 

 

If you ride down this trail when there is a Perfection Process dig day, you might just get photographed. ( if you told everybody you were actually painting the house, well- you were out on yer bike) :

 

 

 

So next week we will keep Perfecting North face, this time on Saturday.

 

We might be chipping away near these arrows!

 

 

It is a tribute to everbody's tenacity/stubborness/fussiness that so much of the trail has been refined, and so many bits have been attacked a few times until The Consensus was satisfied.

 

 

 

Cheers to Don, Jono, Bryan, Jonty, Patrick, Josh, Rob and Ian for working this fine and sunny Easter Monday !

 

This is quite a busy track in the manner of all of North Face, however with increasingly bermed switchbacks, (there are 4), it can be ridden at a great rate by The Skilful Ones. Some truly excellent drifting was done, however the corners are also really nice to ride sedately, as confirmed by The Sedate Ones.

 

We had no plans to work further along the trail today, just to Perfect what had been done and WOW what a (huge) difference a day makes. A painful song for some, but the track does make up for it.

 

Helped by an abundance of local small and large rocks, wheelbarrows of this stuff was transported to the corners to make quite solid foundations for berms. Much dirt was packed into them and they became smooth corners.

 

The top of the berms will of course settle with rain when that happens, because at the moment a lot of the local soil is like talcum powder.

If you are going for a blast down this trail (until the trail peters out near ridgeline extension) please do not ride anywhere near the tops of the berms !!

 

Rollers were also constructed, and I suspect a couple more of those creations will appear before everybody is done.

 

Shortly after Easter some corporate volunteer days will be clearing from the bottom end upwards, so it may only be a month or two until the whole trail is ridable- we shall see.

 

This track will be about 375m long, and finish up right by AMP Connector and Ridgeline Extension- this is the lowest section of the North Face project.

The second lowest part (called JFK for the moment) will in all probability be started when daylight savings time is back in October.

 

Here are quite a few blurry pictures, thanks Josh for being the riding talent..

 

The entrance from the 4wd track

 

 

Another view of the start:

 

 

The first switchback, on the way around:

 

 

 

And the exit:

 

 

A pause to photograph Jono contemplating technical issues with a wheelbarrow full of rocks:

 

 

 

Josh steaming out of the second switchie:

 

 

 

And out of the third one:

 

 

 

Towards the fourth:

 

 

Photos of the 4^th switchback were rubbish.. so here is a bit of a corner further on, where the trail dives towards Ridgeline extension.

 

 

Rather than crashing into that track, it turns left and goes downhill, but that part is not complete yet.

 

Next Sunday, April 11, we are back on the main North Face trail, just over half way down.  

Please looky here à http://www.makarapeak.org/Default.aspx?pageId=575493

 

Our mission is to make this rather imposing switchback #6 as nice as we can for all skill levels (it might only need a bit of in-sloping, (many heads will be scratched and decisions made) and then we will work our way past the Fluffy Bush to travel across the top of The Valley of 6 Switchbacks. The first left hander has been worked on, but it might need more hands on deck, then onwards and downwards we go.

 

The work is progrressing well, but as always more hands do make a difference, so if you would like to help even for a short while, please stop by.

Today we had about 10 people who worked on a rocky corner, (shown as arrow A in the map below), a roller, switchback 3, improved a large chunk of singletrack by adding nice cambers, bends and rollers ( but you knew I was going to say that!), then down to switchback 5, attacked that, and we even had a chip at switchback 6, which others tinkered lower down, working their way up.

 

Switchback 3 now has a small helpful gradient on the turn in (chipped out of solid rock), and the outside berm is a lot less rocky with heaps of dirt packed into the surface. It also has a straight line or swervy entry, (arrow B on the map) allowing for passing room or just a choice of lines.

 

The small rock jump before the next switchback was made rollable and the corner itself still excellent, so some re-cambering and an extra roller or two was done beyond, towards the switchback number 5. This is the one close to Ridgeline, that swings around a Hebe.

 

The narrow rocky entry was widened, and camber improved and the exit given a long sweeping berm, and a small dip added lower down. (dirt for the berm!)

Work was started on the mean switchback number 6, which is very rocky indeed. If you look up “rocky” in a picture dictionary you will see a photo of this corner.

 

So next Sunday 11 April we will perhaps tinker with the surface of switchback 5 and then focus on the rocky #6, and once we are happy with that, head off down past the Fluffy Bush across the top of the Valley Of Switchbacks. This section of track needs a lot of perfecting, the consensus is that it is a bit too narrow and awkwardly cambered.

 

Alternate lines appearing into the re-cambered switchback #3:

 

 

Here is Jonty riding the wee drop

 

 

 

The exit of switchback #5. Not a bad view eh.

 

 

 

And from there the track runs down a steep, open area, and disappears around a bend.

 

 

The inevitable map:

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile the lads were keen to burn off their Easter Eggs, so we will be at Smokin ( from the top) on Monday at 10am ..not to extend the existing work, but to perfect what has already been done.

Tuesday night track work started last November, and since then we have had about 21 work parties starting at 5pm.

These social occasions built 800m of North Face from the bottom up, including 8 switchbacks- including The Beast, and now about 200m of Smokin with 4 more switchbacks.

And, as has become the tradition, many swerves rollers dips and wiggles were built along the way.

Everybody who has helped out on these evenings should be very proud of being part of such an effective and enjoyable effort!

This wee trail is now pretty much cleared except for the last 50 odd metres, and it has been benched except for the last 100 m at a guess. This is a very different environment to the main trail, under trees, in mostly open forest.

Many people are looking forward to riding this beauty.

We will be leaving the trail for some Corporate volunteers to have a crack from the bottom (amazon jungle) end for a dig day day or two, then we willl be back to Perfect the track, as we do!

Meanwhile I set about taking these photos of people at work as darkness fell, destroying everybody's night vision. Truly dazzling. Who said photography was not a sport?

Benching the trail from the last switchback, using plenty of lovely rock as a foundation:

And the trail goes along here :-)

And it is benched to here:

And the ground is cleared to here:

Test riding a roller. The consensus was that it should be moved. Easily fixed!

 

The most important map, showing where the track is ridable, and where it has been cleared only.

As usual with a new trail, the surface is very soft, and please keep well away from any dirt edges and the top of any berms..

So what's next then?

Daylight losing starts over Easter, however we will be out on the main North Face trail on Saturday, working from about 600m down, unpacking the tolls at the top from 10am. More info over there to the left <<<

If people are dead keen, we can do Easter Monday as well, please let me know!

Switchback 3 needs a little work, then we are off in search of switchies 5 and 6. They have some remodeling in their future!

Will Tuesday night digs be back? Almost certainly, way off in October, where there are very exciting plans afoot!