It was another busy year for GORC. Despite the challenges presented by Mother Nature, we managed to get a lot done. The Spring workday season was fairly unusual in that we were forced to cancel a number of workdays- 5 out of 12 scheduled. 3 of these were not made up. The weather made it very challenging to build, let alone ride, trails in the area. A lot of time was spent on maintenance, but we still found time for some new projects. Here are some of the highlights from this year:
-Gateway Mountain Bike Patrol is launched.
-Completed 2 new trails (5 & 6) at SIUE.
-Bangert Island opens with 3 miles of new singletrack.
-Creve Coeur Park has 2.15 miles of new singletrack.
-Work is nearly finished on the proof-of-concept skills area at Klondike Park.
-GORC membership reaches an all-time high with 170 paid members.
-Midwest Mountain Bike Festival in Peoria.
-Maintenance of North Trace Creek section of Ozark Trail.
-GORC visits Brown County, Indiana. In addition to being great fun, the quality of the trails there gives us many new design ideas for our own trails.
-Durango Trip
-Burning at the Bluff
-Berryman Epic Race/Tour
-GORC Volunteer Appreciation Party at Greensfelder.
-The Ozark Trail Association is working on the construction of singletrack between the Huzzah Conservation Area and Harmon Spring on the Berryman on the Courtois section of the OT. Once this section, called the Courtois Gap, is complete, it will be nearly all singletrack between Huzzah CA and Hazel Creek Campground. In addition, the OTA shuttle has made it possible to ride some sections of the trail, like the Middle Fork, without having to juggle cars.
-Broemmelsiek and Indian Camp Creek both have new trail sections, and maintenance was done on existing trail.
-Castlewood, Chubb, Greensfelder, and Lost Valley all had maintenance work done.
-The St. Louis Adventure Group has come out in force to help at trail workdays, with their attendance numbers rivalling those of GORC members. Many are even joining GORC and vice-versa, so this distinction between the 2 groups probably won't matter for long.
-All told GORC contributed 3992 hours of volunteer labor this year.
As usual, we have big plans for area trails, and not enough manpower to implement all of them, so if you like what you see on your local trails, please try to make it to a workday or two in 2009. See you on the trails!
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