With the Enduro coming up in two weekends, I got the call from Rob Hammerlund that there was a super deep, ugly rut @ the west end of the Bridge sequence that we have crossing the Little Net River on the Harlis Bypass Trail. I had an inkling that this spot might become a problem when we re-routed the trail a couple of years ago. Well, now it was officially a problem!
We figured that three 8ft long boardwalks would do the trick. We decided to build them at Rob’s house during the week. On Tuesday after work I ran to Menard’s and bought the necessary lumber, etc… and headed for Rob’s house. His son, Holden, got in on the construction. With the three of us going at it, the cutting and construction went really fast. It only took 1 1/2 hours – it was done before dinner time.
This morning I met Rob and we headed up the “Interstate” trail (a minimum maintenance road) to the de-facto parking spot on the west end of the Harlis Bypass. We had to drag the boardwalks and haul the tools down the singletrack about a mile to the bridge-site. It took a couple of trips, but it wasn’t long until we were ready to place the boardwalks. Once more I was glad to be wearing my knee-high rubber boots as the rut was muddy, deep and wide. It was a really hot day. We placed the first boardwalk and headed back to the trucks for some fluids and some forgotten tools. Three hours from start-to-finish and our quick fix was in place.