The beginning of June saw the Docs headed back up to Lubbock for some recon work in the city and to check out Copper Breaks State park.  We had a meeting with members of the West Texas Cycling Association and the City of Lubbock Parks and Rec. Dept. to verify our project for the upcoming trail school.  We then headed east a little to meet up with the managers of Copper Breaks State Park.  They had petitioned IMBA for a visit from a Trail Crew, and when IMBA's schedule was filled, they punted to the Trail Docs!  We were given a tour of some of the more interesting sections of trail and then sat down to talk about options.   The park is in dire need of some volunteers to do maintenance on their 20 miles of trail.  If you're interested, please email us so we can put you in touch with the park staff.

June 7th was National Trails Day, which just happened to coincide with our Trail School.  The City of Lubbock was kind enough to donate a room at the Mae Simmons Community Center for our classroom sessions, and even had two city employees attend.  We had nine people in class, with two of them being from the state parks.  In the afternoon, we went out to the park to lay out a reroute.  Everyone took turns using the clinometer and generating ideas about how to move a blind intersection and how to remove a badly eroded fall line trail.  We ended up planning and flagging a contour route down into and up out of a small ravine that would add about an extra tenth of a mile of trail to get around the short problem section. 

Fortunately the flags were still there when we came back the next morning, and the group got to work.  We were also lucky to have had several rains before the trail school, which softened up the ground and made it much easier to work.  While the majority of the group went to work digging in the new trail tread, a few folks closed down and revegetated the first part of the intersection, while another intrepid soul set to work building terraces and replanting the short steep section.  It looked just beautiful afterward! (We'll try to get some pictures posted soon.)  Bench cutting in the new trail took all day, and it came out very well.  We even had a little energy left at the end of the day to take turns riding the new section. All in all, it was a very productive day with the Lubbock folks - thanks for all the hard work guys!

After leaving so late in the day on Sunday, we decided to drive the Subaru only part way back home and wound up camping in Mother Neff State Park.  Monday morning we completed the rest of the drive back to Warda and had about 24 hours off before heading into Austin to get ready for our next tour of duty.  Wednesday morning the 11th we met Hill Abell bright and early to hike through a parcel of land on the south side of town that will have some multi-use trails in the future.  We also worked with some representatives from the Austin Ridge Riders club, the other IMBA state rep, and the Texas Trail Tamers.  The Slaughter Creek watershed property will eventually be developed with about 6-7 miles of trail; we spent most of the week flagging a corridor for the perimeter trail and deciding what features to focus on and what ones to avoid.  We have to add our comments that Hill Abell is an inspiration, not only a bicycle shop owner, but an avid (and fast) rider and tireless trail advocate.  Thanks for all that you do, Hill!

Next up on our schedule was another visit to Nolanville to check in on the new interpretive mountain bike park that we're helping to develop.  Ryan had drawn up a nice proposal for the various skill sections and stunts, and we did some flagging and rough cutting of the tread through part of the park.  Then we headed back down to Austin to visit some friends on our way to Canyon Lake for the Bikemojo festival and trail work party the weekend of June 21-22.  Alan Sansome of Bikemojo fame had pulled together a great festival with the help of J. Harvey from the Army Corps of Engineers at the park and a few other dedicated riders and trail workers.  Wherever there's Mojos, there's bound to be fun, and this weekend was no exception.  We also did a good amount of work though, building a contour reroute to get rid of the steep and eroding "Thing in a Bag" section.  The majority of the Madrone trail at Canyon Lake is well done, with lots of slow technical rock garden sections that really test your handling skills.  The momentum of the weekend led to folks asking about future trail work days, which is exactly what the organizers wanted to have happen.  Check out bikemojo.com for trail work updates (and some pretty funny pictures from the weekend - look for stupid bike tricks with Alan and the ramp jump into the water!)

June 25-28 was spent at Fort Boggy State Park about an hour north of Huntsville assessing the current trails and planning some new routes to get over or around some of the boggy areas for which the park got its name.  We also got to work again with Jeff Sparks and Todd McMakin, the resources specialists that we got to know at Tyler SP.  In addition to their depth of knowledge about the parks, it's nice to have someone else to joke around with while bushwhacking through the woods.  June was wrapped up with a successful trail advocacy day in Houston on the 30th.  Congressman Lampson chaired a panel to discuss renewal of the federal transportation bill that includes some funding for recreational trails.  We also had some Bike Houston and Texas Bicycle Coalition representatives on the panel including Regina Garcia and Linda Armstrong-Kelly - yes, Lance's mom.  We also got to have lunch afterward with Ms. Armstrong-Kelly and several TBC bigwigs, which was quite nice.