Roots, Rocks, Regional Land Manager Training:

NEMBA, IMBA, and AMC team up on Trailbuilding Symposium

IMBA, NEMBA, AMC, and MA Department of Environmental Management joined forces for a great weekend of education, trailbuilding, and fun.
The rocks are the foundation for a cribwall of a turning ramp off of a boardwalk.
The finished product is a boardwalk and ramp that keep users out of the beaver pond
Three bridges, full rock armoring, rock ramps, and full bench cut entrance and exit are the fruits of two days of labor.
A local rider checks the flow of the boardwalk/rock area.

Holyoke Range State Park hosted the annual New England Mountain Bicycling Association (NEMBA) Trailbuilding weekend where Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew leaders, Aaryn Kay and Scott Linnenburger, provided educational seminars along with Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) experts and trailbuilding/advocacy legend, Kurt Loheit.

With the NEMBA trailbuilders and their two fully-outfitted tool trailers running on all cylinders, field seminars on trail design, maintenance, bridge building, and rock armoring were available to over fifty trail enthusiasts including a dozen Massachusetts land managers. The end result was not only lots of education and interaction between volunteer trailbuilders and those that manage the land, but also a gorgeous trail reconstruction project across the headwaters of a beaver pond.

Many thanks to Ranger Mike Smythe for all of his hospitality, Phil Keyes and Kurt Loheit fo rtheir tireless support of mountain bicycling, and Krisztina Holly, Peter Brandenburg, Ted Weber and Heather Clish for sharing all of their knowledge.