2008 Summer Recreation Programs are underway!

This past weekend we opened up our Conservancy Recreation Office with a brand new staff. Many of our personnel are Outdoor Recreation majors at nearby Radford University or studying at Virginia Tech. We have several naturalists on staff who will bring an educational component to our guided hikes and mountain bike rides.

Our new pump track is now entering the final design phase and we hope to start work on it soon.

ToeJammer Trail - our latest stretch of advanced level single track - is 90% cut out and should be ready to be part of the Dirty Dawg MTB Race in June. The new course is going to offer some technical riding not present in last year's course and also add quite a bit of climbing.
Check out some pix of highlights from the trail taken by the Moonstompers just a week ago.
http://www.moonstomper.org/gallery/v/granpapa/ML0408/

This week the WX has hovered in the mid 60's, a spot of showers here and there - but beautiful overall. We hope to run our first New River Sampler Trip this Saturday morning if we get enough hotel guests to sign up. If you are planning to be up here - come by the Rec Office ASAP to get your name on the list - we only have room for ten - don't miss out!

Break out your skis? New Maps! New Trail! & Dirty Dawg

BrewRidge Music Festival Wrap Up
After an incredible weekend of perfect Spring weather for the BrewRidge Music Festival (rain didn't fall till we were cleaning up after the final act for the afternoon on Saturday), we were greeted with a light dusting of snow and ice this morning. The 40 degree swing in temps is quite a shock. Things kicked off right on Friday night with the Locust Mountain Boys from Craig County...Joe Wilson of 'The Crooked Road' and his beautiful wife Katherine showed up to tap their feet for the music. Joe and Katherine were instrumental in helping us put this event together.
Robin & Linda Williams and Their Fine Group really fired up the crowd with their foot stomping folk music and terrific sense of humor. The crowd enjoyed the warm sunshine and the cold beer, mead and cider flowing out from under the tents.
The Jugbusters from Blacksburg picked up where Robin and Linda left off as they nearly burned down the barn with some dance music you probably won't hear in the local club. Judging by these pictures it had the desired effect!
The brewfest was a blast by all accounts, the dance floor is now perfectly polished and the beer kegs are just tapped out. We're looking forward to it going even bigger and better next year - mark your calendars for the first weekend of May 2009.

New Trail Maps Now Available!
Our new GPS enhanced, full color, shaded, 1:24,000 scale USGS Topo maps are now ready for sale at the Conservancy. They'll also soon become available at East Coasters in Blacksburg. We had these professionally printed on a really nice weatherproof map paper that should withstand lots of abuse floating around in your pack.
New Trail - Toejammer
Toejammer is taking form, Both ends of the trail have been cut in and are ridable. The middle section of the trail has been flagged and is easy to follow with some short hike-a-bikes to duck brush. This past Sunday we rode it for the first time with Eggman, Sully, and Abner of the Moonstompers and Eric and Chuck of the Virginia Tech Freeriding Club. We hope to form a new trail club with them to help us improve our trail system and take mountain biking at Mountain Lake to the next level.

Dirty Dawg Cycling Weekend - Progress!
With BrewRidge now out of the way, we've pinned our ears back and are setting our teeth into the plan for the big riding weekend and mountain bike race. The new race course is all set and will really show off the broad variety of trail types our system offers. A race course description will be forthcoming soon. Till then, if you are trying to prepare for the race - do lots of climbing and throw yourself into some rock gardens. You might want to go ahead and give Stan's a try too.

We're excited that the Trek/Gary Fisher demo will be here on Saturday the 14th, and can't wait to get our paws on the new Trek 9.5 EX to hammer our healthy rock gardens. I plan to warm up my legs on the new Madone 6.9 with a descent and climb of the famous Rt.613 'Backside Climb', my favorite part of our local stage of the old Tour DuPont (now the final climb of the Mountains of Misery).

We've got a lot of neat events planned and hope to have a good crowd.

APO Lake Cleanup
A few weeks ago we were visited by the Alpha Phi Omega fraternity. They spent the better part of a day picking up all kinds of material out of the lake. They got muddy and wet and did a terrific job and found some really neat stuff. Check out the pix below.

Trail work update

Sorry for the delay in updating - was out of town over the past week guiding a cycling Elderhostel in Williamsburg. Got to see Jamestown, Yorktown and Colonial W'burg - great group!

Last week good progress was made in cutting in the beginning and end of 'Toejammer Trail' on Salt Pond Ridge. Still have some flagging to do to locate the middle section - but it is mostly there.
There will be some bench work to be done on a short section along with a switchback - should be easily built in a day with a good crew. This trail has a lot of potential for alternate lines using natural obstacles for those so inclined.

Beautiful trail!
--dB

Spring rollercoaster

Temps have been in the high 60's even lower 70's this week - fired up some emerging plant life in the forest. Work has begun in earnest on Toejammer with the trail taped and about 40% of the trail opened up. OH and they say it will snow up here Sunday!

The new MLC Mountain Biking Trail Maps are almost set to go out to the printer, we'll get them out to East Coasters and Tangent Outdoors to sell by the end of the month if everything goes as planned.

We are making more progress on the new disc golf course; a volunteer work day is scheduled for May 10th - if you like to play come on out and help us open up some new lanes. We are working on sponsorships for the baskets, more to come on that.

We installed our new parking fee post at the kiosk. Please leave $3 per car if you aren't purchasing a Trail Access pass for the year. The donation helps us afford to improve the trails, gravel the parking lot, buy chains for the chainsaw etc. We need new trail building tools too.
THANKS!!

Gotta run!
--dB

Spring is here... well sort of.

Just got back from clearing trees off of some of the trails with the chainsaw (Upper Jungle, White Dot, Upper Doe, Lower Doe, White Pine Road, Middle Jungle, Old Turnpike and Chestnut Lodge). Only took about 4.5 hrs pulling the Bob trailer loaded up with the chainsaw and my lunch.

Cleared a few really tangled messes that have been in the way for too long - felt good to be out there opening up the trail.

Updated our website this week with information about the Olen Sharron - Warren Mays Memorial Fund - look for the pop up nav under 'Donations' or just go here...
http://www.mtnlakeconservancy.org/donations-OSmf.html

Thanks goes to Tom McAvoy for his help in writing the content.

Tuesday AM I joined Brad Buchanan for a meeting of the New River Valley Regional Bikeway Walkway Committee where I gave a 15 minute power point to inform folks of the trail development we are doing here at the Conservancy. They have invited the Conservancy to attend the next meeting on May 20th.

'Yield to Life' has expressed interest in coming up for the Dirty Dawg Cycling Weekend in June.

VT Cycling is holding an ACCC Time Trial on the Rt. 700 on Sunday April 6th. The finish line will be at the crest of the mountain as you first see the lake. We are opening up the Activity Barn and our parking lots to accommodate the racers and support staff as well as spectators. Should be fun - hoping for nice weather - last April 6th we got 6" of snow.

RideRiverRun has a website up for their event to be held in Pearisburg on July 6th. More info will be up soon - keep an eye on it - should be a neat event.

BCCS...
Last Friday evening Emily & Jeremy, joined my son Henry and myself for a trip up to Bath County for the annual Butler Cave Conservation Society 'Pancake Weekend'. We camped out near their old homestead - built about 1740 - and went to Williamsville early on Saturday AM to enjoy their amazing pancake breakfast featuring fresh maple syrup. We ate our $7 worth then spent the rest of the morning helping out with improvements at the homestead before joining in on a cave dig not far up the road. The weather held for us until late in the evening when the clouds finally burst.

--dB

Kiosk updated - Trail Access sign painted

Yesterday we discovered that the fork on our trusty Bob Gear Trailer was not going to work with our new Gary Fisher Cobia 29'er mountain bike - we needed a trailer fork that was just a bit longer to accommodate the larger wheel. So we gave Bob Gear a call... they were happy to help us out and have joined our list of corporate sponsors.

Thanks Bob Gear!!!

We updated our Trail Access kiosk this morning with some new information for our trail users and also painted a rock beside the parking lot to point people in the right direction.

We're hoping to get to work on new trail maps in the next couple weeks. Our trail access stickers are now available for sale - get yours!

--dB

Trail Access passes are ready!

We have received our new Trail Access stickers from the printer and they will be available at East Coasters and Tangent Outdoors beginning Wednesday. Cost will be $30. Proceeds will fund trail improvement projects and also help us pay for the gravel we just spread in the new lot.
Check it out...