Steve Salisbury, Walt Lesher, Larry Lesher, Andy Miller, Dan Hyatt, Frank Hayes, Steve Bass, Greg Hoffman and myself were present to get the new beginning of the 3N34 trail back on track. There have been a lot of changes to the T-6 crossing in the past month!  The new concrete bridge and compacted dirt parking area are now very accessible to cars - even a Lincoln Town Car, with its smooth, quiet and controlled ride - can bring Joe Davis to see the Deep Creek fish spawn. The water crossing will likely be a hot spot for more than off-roaders, motorcyclist and fish.  Make way for the teeny-boppers.

The bridge is done! The Forest Service is planning on opening the 3N34 for the Independence Day weekend!  However, our Adopt-a-Trail will now start on the other side of the T-6 crossing, just after the parking area on the left. If I understand correctly, The Dirt Devils will no longer be responsible for the actual water crossing or the " parking lot" area. Our modified responsibility will be to care for the trail beginning immediately after the parking lot and through to the end of the designated trail. Even though our designated trailhead will now begin farther up the path, I'm sure the Dirt Devils will continue to pick up trash and keep the water crossing decent.

We couldn't open it without the rocks!  After a long and grueling day in the blazing sun, the trail once again has a new rock garden; but, this time the garden is planted in new soil -- just after the water crossing (I've got to stop saying "water crossing" -- it's a "bridge crossing" now). The new 3N34 trail entrance has three huge boulders buried in it, and packed in good with dirt. As the boulders are driven upon, the dirt will uncover tricky ledges and drops. The first rock garden, "Independence Pass," ought to be great for keeping the Town Car and Joe D. out! 

We also built another new (very big) rock garden up near the first turn. Dan and Andy brought in a lot of rocks from the hills above ( they used a rock bar to roll them down onto the trail). However, a lot of these rocks are in the trail loose, so these need to be rolled around and slightly buried to help keep them in place. We still have tons to do as far as getting the trail ready for traffic again. We also need several vehicles to drive the new trail to break it in. We did manage to dig in several large rocks as anchors and filled in several other rocks to form the second rock garden, Devil's Gate.

The trail as it sits today is very tough, maybe too tough in a few spots. When we run the trail on July 12th, we need to move a few more rocks around as needed. Once the signs of construction go away, the area will look very natural. We have a trail/work day scheduled for the 12th, and we need a lot of help on this day. Since this is a scheduled Adopt-a-Trail work day on our calendar, please plan on attending and SHOW UP. 

The three objectives for the day are:

1. Move our Adopt-a-Trail sign to the new beginning of the trail.
2. Continue to work on the entrance and the bottom rock gardens (Independence Pass & Devil's Gate).
3. Determine what we will do to roughen up the top of the trail. ( We need Greg's help here. Since the waterfall will remain naturally difficult, we need to roughen up both ends of the trail accordingly. Greg has left the degree of difficultly for us to decide. This is a great time for us to make the difficultly of both ends of the 3N34 trail on par with the waterfall. 

We sure had a lot of fun on Thursday!  Dirt Devils, please make sure to join the work party on July 12th.  You can contact me by phone (refer to the club roster) or you can e-mail me at quinn@dirtdevils.org. 

Check out more photos from the June 26th workday.

Read more about our Adopt-A-Trail.......HERE!

Read more about the 3N34 Bridge Project at myjeeprocks.com.