North Face/ Smokin/ JFK Blog

Hi Folks

With many people taking a look down the constuction zone that is the North Face trail, they are finding that there is about 400m of unridable/not very walkable trail in the middle.

It is possible to hike up to Ridgeline and then drop down onto the North Face a little further along.

Please bear in mind that the North Face trail is nowhere near finished.

You must be prepared to stop at any time. There may be tools and or workers on the trail anwhere, or unridable track at any point with no warning at all :-)

There are thousands of very sharp cut stumps beside the trail, do not risk falling on them !

There are sticks poking though the surface of the trail, do not risk falling on them either !

The downhill side of the trail may be very soft or even collapse if you ride on it. Note again the warning about very sharp cut stumps!

And, not much drainage work has been done.

People or riders may be travelling up and down all of the track.

All that said by all means have a cautious look.

Map of the way onto and off Ridgeline is below: The yellow arrows show where you can travel up to Ridgeline then back again. The middle bit (roughly greyed out) will probably be cleared in 4-6 weeks..depending on your help.

We will be working on the top end of the grey bit this Saturday, (alternating between Saturdays and Sundays after that) and the bottom part every Tuesday evening, but people may be working anywhere along the trail at any time at all !

Cheers!

Rob

16 happy people dug dirt this evening in the usual social event that is a summer Tuesday evening at the North Face. Congratulations to those who came along for the first time too :-)

The cleared+benched trail advanced about 75 metres, but the best bit is that the Uber Switchback now resembles a semi sensible corner, and many swerves and curves of great beauty were created.

This track will be an ode to gravity and artistry once it is done!

The views really are amazing. We will need to put in a few places where people can stop and admire Wellington from a high vantage point, within a regenerating native forest no less.

Those of you who are hoping for a Sally Alley/Swigg style track, you will one day find one that is 1700m long, and that is just part of it.

Jolly good show, ladies and gentlemen.

Cheers Mark for these photos :-)

See you on the side of a hill!

Saturday Jan 30th was a very warm day by local standards: unlike the rest of summer which was definately not what it said on the tin.

Cheers to Hugh, Don, Zac, Jono, Rob and Josh for swinging heavy tools in the sun.

We began just before a ridge, which in common with this part of the hill, was solid rock but around the corner we traversed some bracken (without rock) into a spot where corners were made:

And then to the ridge:

Last week around the bend looked like this:

and this week we had invented this. Taken late in the day, here we have Josh and Jono doing some landsaping:

The trail then goes, you guessed it, around a corner. Which last week was like this:

and now it looks like:

The trail will in fact veer right and zoom along an open area one day, travel in a relatively straight line dropping gradually, then kick up into a switchback. Then run down a slight grade into... another switchback and then zoom off towards Ridgeline.

Which handily cannot be seen in this photo:

Because it was so hot we probably spent more time than usual lurking in the shade and drinking tremendous quantities of Coke, but even so the track clearing gets ever longer :-)

Cheers also to those who rode down the existing unbuilt trail during the day. They were able to clamber through the gorse up to Ridgeline without I hope getting too shredded!

On Tuesday 26th Jan nearly 20 people once again provided the musclepower to attack the Uber Switchback, chip rocks, bench trail, clear trees and lop the pilot track.

They worked along a 50m area transforming the gnarly gorse barberry and rocks etc into a place where bikes can be ridden.

Awesome work everybody! Remember though that this is just the intial clearing, later on we will be back to perfect everything.

It is very cool to see and hear so many people happily digging away at the North Face trail.

Some people were at the top switchback in this valley, which is right by Ridgeline, and so they has the opportunity to gently heckle those who rode by just above. Regardez les Dots:

I was pleased to see Tom's wiggle still in place, and it had been joined by another one!

For those wondering about working on one of these evenings, there is plenty to do. You can take your pick of the type of work you do (hacking at rocks, making a flat bench, clearing stumps etc) and how hard (or easy) you work, and how long you stay.

We finished up after dark for some slightly manic workers....

These Tuesday night events will keep going while daylight savings lasts, which is until Easter.

Twas a damp and foggy day, however the 16 degrees was a nice temperature to track build. Cheers to Hugh, Jono, Iain and Rob for having a go in the middle of this gloomy long weekend.

Although we did not travel far, some really steep, rocky and otherwise awkward terrain was belted into submission. This small part of the trail traverses a small gap in an immense rock face, and was one of the critical points in deciding if the North Face could be built at all.

 Many large rocks running clear across the trail were smashed into small bits, and a whole dynasty of barberry was forcibly yanked out of the hillside. Some large rocks and one huge one were levered from the bank and used to create a very solid foundation. Nice work guys!

A flowy rise with berm was built by the usual energetic suspects and the trail is now pretty much to the next ridge. The next 5 metres of clearing/building will be tough, but after that we have a couple of hundred metres of nice easy work, where we can build what I hope will be (one day) a fast “open” section in the next mellow valley.

With 2 switchbacks. Heh.Heh.

We wandered off after 4 as the rain started much to Jono’s disgust, and the rain of course stopped shortly afterwards.

At first, this area looked a bit like this- after the low scrub was cleared:

And at the end of the day:

Hugh on the attack:

Jono and Iain with their trophy:

The rocks slowly vanished:

New Rolly Jumpy bits:

We are now down to here:

Last night 14 people cleared some gnarly terrain at the lower end of North face, and had to be bribed to leave as it became dark :-)

Some ripped gorse and barberry out of the ground, others sculpted things of great finess and beauty, and the determined types attacked the Uber Switchback.
Well done all !

Special thanks to Don McL who organises these, and to Joby Mills, the Ranger, digging in his spare time!

We are now working along the area covered by the dots:

Today we had 6 people work on a rather gnarly part down from the top end of this trail.
It was damp. There were lots of rocks. Some were large. There were barberry trees. After a brief skirmish lasting most of the day we scored a convincing victory.

Once again we have created the foundations of more lovely flowy trail in spite of what lies beneath.

We are now 600m down from the road in our clearing mission, and the going does get a little easier from here on from memory

Here is a map with dots on it.

Next weekend we will again be assembling on Sunday, see you there !!

And before then, the usual Tuesday from 5PM working up from the bottom, where we are 375m up the trail. :-)

WOW

Amazing,

21 people came out of the 'burbs into the forest to help build this track !!

More info later, and a huge thanks to all of you who helped out, a great time was had by all.

Here is yet another map, this time showing roughly where the track clearing is from each end of the road:road ( total1 700m, about half way cleared) ::

And HUGE thanks to Don who organises these midweek sessions- they are great fun and are helping to make exceptional track building progress.

People power at it's finest.

What's next? Even though we are only half way?

Well we are only half way to clearing this part of the track and putting in the beginnings of a bench.

Once we have cleared the 1700m we then need to go back and do a lot of important work:

**Widening the trail along most of the length, creating flow by landscaping the cambers, banks and curves in 3 dimensions

**Packing down all of the soft edges

**Ensuring that the track will drain naturally over as much of the length as possible, and only adding in drains where we have no choice

**Guiding the riders around natives by the track sides

**Removing all of the sharp sticks and stumps by the trail

**and hopefully doing masses of plantings in the winter!!

We also have a few other sections of the track to do, so this is very much a long term large project. But we will prevail.

Today was fine, hot in the sun, with the usual tremendous views across Wellington.

9 people chipped hacked and dug their way along about 80M of trail. This means we have sort of benched (but nowhere near finished) about 590m from the road by the T3 sign :-)

Thanks to Hugh, Hugh, Don, Zac,?, Owen, Graeme, ? and Rob. If I have forgotten your name I do apologise, please email me (robscave@gmail.com) and I can correct everything. This means you may qualify for a unique and uber special T shirt one day, so please let me know!

It was pretty hard going due to the frequent rocky outcrops, although the the side slope was not very steep, there were dozens of barberry and gorse trees that were silly enough to grow where the track is now situated. We have another 20m of gnarl then it is plain sailing for the next 200m, or so I seem to recall !!

See you again next weekend.

As soon as the day is decided I shall post it here and on Vorb.

Meanwhile our usual Tuesday evening (from the bottom, above Allington Rd) kicks off at 5, with food at about 7. We pack up on Tuesdays at about 8:30.

Cheers.

Well today I rode down the 510m from the top, just to see how things are coming together.

Which is, tremendously well :-)

The beast has it's own personality and it aims to please.

We will be packing down the trail through winter, widening it and smoothing it as well. What you see now is just the foundations..

If you decide to ride along this trail please remember these

important points during your ride:

- be prepared to stop at any time, people can and do work on this trail at any time. As the trail has no exit yet you may encounter oncoming traffic.

- the trail is unfinished so there are many hazardous very sharp sticks and sharp rocks right next to the trail.. Ride very carefully and slowly as a fall may result in injury.

- the downhill edge of the trail is softer than fresh bread, do not ride anywhere hear it, or even downhill of the center.

And, stop and admire the view :-)

Happy Trails !