Trail Work Days
The Ft. Pierce Trail is a naturally sustained trail. Every summer there is a cycle of flooding that assists us by bringing in hardpan soil and broken down debris. Unfortunately there is a price to pay -- often the trail simply closes up for a while, generally in August and September. Usually in October we call a couple trail days and get the whole place cleaned up.  Since the advent of major hurricane damages in 2004 & 2005, the situation dramatically changed, with 100's of trees downed, and up to 10 feet of water in places. 

We generally meet at the Ft. Pierce trail each Saturday around 9 am. We're doing this to clean up all the hurricane damages from 2004 & 2005. We'll keep meeting until we're done.  After that our focus will return to quietly maintaining the trail, and to keeping a proactive MTB presence on the property until the land deal gets done with St. Lucie County.  We offer free one year memberships to Airborne in exchange for donated time for trail work.  Come out and help us with your community trail.

At Halpatiokee we are invited to help maintain the trails at any time. Martin County appreciates if we submit volunteer hours.  The park is still in the developmental stages, and MTB use will be included in the plan - as recreational use expands.  We will keep you informed of these ongoing opportunities at Halpatiokee.  Trail Work Days are now beginning regularly at 9 am Saturday.

The winter months are when we at Airborne like to be more involved with the riding, and with some side trips.

 

 

Past Trail Work Events & Results:

Ft. Pierce Bike Trail: Fall Clearance
Saturday October 11, 2003: 8am until 2pm

RESULTS:

 What a great day!  Perfect weather and a good turn out made the day a complete success. Don, Paul, Nick, Scott, Ryan, Steve and Keith worked the 3 bridges area all the way back to where Tornado Alley is.  That is always one of the murkiest parts of the woods.  They used the techniques we learned in the IMBA trail building school to eradicate many if not all the remaining mud wells and improve water drainage off the trail.  In some areas where the slime bogs were particularly long, new trail shielding was placed.

Paul also repaired the base of 'Big Dipper' so that water water could continue to flow under and over the trail.  He took care of the wash out in the basin.

Todd headed out and with the help of David Ingram cleaned up and trimmed back the Dance section of the trail.  This is the part of the trail that gets cut off from the main trail in wet summer months.  Usually by now there's a substantial amount of in growth of weeds, and blown down limbs.

In the meantime we stole Todd's fine new Moots dual suspension bike and auctioned it off to the highest bidder for $120.  Thanks Todd! (Just kidding! oh and also, we heard that Dave Ingram kind of disappeared on us!)

John, Eric, Nicole, Dan and Bill took the section from the trail head and trimmed back the over growth and repaired areas all the way back to the beginning of the Dance section.  There is only one spot still submerged and unrideable - it's the far east end of the trail, and it's a short section. It'll be dried out in a few weeks, and in the meantime there's a shortcut already in place.

Tornado Alley is of course still inaccessible due to the deep standing water.  We'll be watching as the area dries out, then will re-open as soon as is possible afterward.

It was noted that there are now 'No Trespassing' and "No Hunting & No Fishing" signs posted on the property entrances.   These signs are required in accordance with the current terms of the conservation easement. Nothing has changed there, except that the land owner is finally in compliance with the SFWMD rules. 

I spoke today with St. Lucie county's attorney and he stated that the purchase of the land is moving along.  The church who owns the land is agreeable to sell the land upon which the trail resides to the county, and this process has an unknown duration.  There is also a possibility that they will also sell the remaining land to the county.  We will have to wait and see, but the official word is that all is well, things are looking good for us MTB'ers.