Trail Maintenance: The Honeysuckle Horror!

For a long time my Metro Tri Club friends and I have been using the GORC trails out at SIUE for running, mountain biking, and a couple of us have even been geocaching out there.  Last year the club decided make donation to GORC to show our appreciation for all the hard work they put into maintaining the trails for people like us to use.  This year however we were told that while the money was greatly appreciated what they really needed was boots on the ground to actually do the work.  We organized a crew and had a plan.  The only hitch in that plan was that yesterday our scheduled work day was rainy and very wet.  I say it was a hitch but it actually worked out pretty well as we were the only people out on the trails we got to work uninterrupted.  Even with the foul weather we had about 10 club members show up, which was great.

I spent 4 hours out there cutting and removing honeysuckle which is very pernicious in that it will grow quickly and over take the trail.  I am so sick of honeysuckle, I can't express it right now.  we got a lot of work done but there are still miles to go.  The best part is we get to do it all over again once we are finished.  Trail maintenance is a never ending task like Sisyphus rolling the boulder up the hill.

Thanks to GORC for all of the hard (often times thankless) work you do on all of the trails in the area.  If you are a trail user check to find out who maintains the trails in your area and ask how you can help.

I was so busy working that I didn't get any pictures but Super Kate (who was also super late) did click on the picture below to read her post and see some pictures of what we were up to.