----- Original Message -----

From: Brad Herder

To: BerkshireNEMBA@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, December 31, 2008 12:30 PM

Subject: [BerkshireNEMBA] 2008 Hours

To answers Mike's question... for those of us who logged our hours in
the datbase... we had:

The places that benefited from our work were:

Pittsfield State Forest 523 hours
Wendell State Forest 120 (trail school)
Beartown 51
October Mt 8
Lenox Mt 7
Kennedy Park 6
---
715 hours total for the year

Top 10 volunteers for the year are:

1. Brad Herder 107.5 hours
2. Harry Meyer 63.0
3. Mike Coyne 55.0
4. Ruth Wheeler 41.5
5. Dave Sacco 34.5
6. Beth Herder 29.0
7. Neal Blair 28.0
8. Amy Fields 22.0
9. Dan Fields 21.0
10. Bill Markham 21.0

If we take out trail school, which gave some of us an advantage, it
changes things slightly.

1 Brad Herder 95.5
2 Harry Meyer 51.0
3 Mike Coyne 43.0
4 Ruth Wheeler 41.5
5 Beth Herder 29.0
6 Dave Sacco 22.5
7 John Jansen 17.5
8 Neal Blair 16.0
9 Gary Millett 11.5
10 Amy Fields 10.0
11 Herm 10.0

I know Bill Markham killed us all if we counted work he did for the
Kendafest. Ed Carmen, Elton too! Probably others. I don't know who
spent mega-hours over there.

Next year we should log any work we do on any trails as long as it's
legal.

We also spent many hours in meetings and on other stuff like the web
site.

All in all, I'd have to say it was a very good year. I really enjoyed
working with everyone and hope we can get more accomplished next
year... speaking of which...

I intend to go up to the top of the Turner Trail on January 1, 2008
sometime and clear all the way to the Berry Pond Circuit road. If
anyone would like to join me, let me know. I'm flexible on the time.

----------------------------------------------------------
... A N D ... L A S T ... B U T ... N O T ... L E A S T ...
----------------------------------------------------------

M E E T I N G ?

We should have a meeting in January sometime and elect new officers
for 2009. Maybe someone with a good working relationship with the
state or very pleasing demeanor might want to be president???

Chris - what Thursday in 2009 would work for you at the Arc Shop?

Thanks,
Brad

To answers Mike's question... for those of us who logged our hours in
the datbase... we had:

The places that benefited from our work were:

Pittsfield State Forest 523 hours
Wendell State Forest    120 (trail school)
Beartown                 51
October Mt                8
Lenox Mt                  7
Kennedy Park              6
                         ---
                         715 hours total for the year

Top 10 volunteers for the year are:

  1. Brad Herder 107.5 hours
  2. Harry Meyer  63.0
  3. Mike Coyne   55.0
  4. Ruth Wheeler 41.5
  5. Dave Sacco   34.5
  6. Beth Herder  29.0
  7. Neal Blair   28.0
  8. Amy Fields   22.0
  9. Dan Fields   21.0
10. Bill Markham 21.0

If we take out trail school, which gave some of us an advantage, it
changes things slightly.

  1 Brad Herder  95.5
  2 Harry Meyer  51.0
  3 Mike Coyne   43.0
  4 Ruth Wheeler 41.5
  5 Beth Herder  29.0
  6 Dave Sacco   22.5
  7 John Jansen  17.5
  8 Neal Blair   16.0
  9 Gary Millett 11.5
10 Amy Fields   10.0
11 Herm         10.0

I know Bill Markham killed us all if we counted work he did for the
Kendafest.  Ed Carmen, Elton too!  Probably others.  I don't know who
spent mega-hours over there.

Next year we should log any work we do on any trails as long as it's
legal.

We also spent many hours in meetings and on other stuff like the web
site.

All in all, I'd have to say it was a very good year. I really enjoyed
working with everyone and hope we can get more accomplished next
year... speaking of which...

I intend to go up to the top of the Turner Trail on January 1, 2008
sometime and clear all the way to the Berry Pond Circuit road.  If
anyone would like to join me, let me know.  I'm flexible on the time.

----------------------------------------------------------------
  ... A N D ... L A S T ... B U T ... N O T  ... L E A S T ...
----------------------------------------------------------------

    M  E  E  T  I  N  G  ?

We should have a meeting in January sometime and elect new officers
for 2009.  Maybe someone with a good working relationship with the
state or very pleasing demeanor might want to be president???

Chris - what Thursday in 2009 would work for you at the Arc Shop?

Thanks,
Brad

Brad-how many hrs as a group did we log this yr?
Mike

Be careful out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pilcLXpdJK0

And when you're done, here's how to open a drink:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm0Qnlt8T-0

Josh -  Could we put this down as NEMBA labor hours in the database?  How many
people?
How many hours?  Makes us look good should we ever want to ask for some leeway
with the
state.

Brad.

On Tue Dec 30 12:04 , 'Berkshire Outfitters' <berkout@...> sent:

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>TSR Trail Crew
>Just wanted to say Thanks Allot to everyone who
>showed up this past Sun. We were able to open the trail from top to bottom,
>that's rite the bolt is wide open. Please use caution while skiing on the sides
>for there is still a few limbs that may grab you. Think
>SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> Josh
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Turner Trail is cleared to the prayer flags... still need to do from
there to the Skyline and then on out to the road.

Hi,

The XC skiing is fantastic and I talked with Mike and we're going to
cancel doing trail work tomorrow and enjoy the trails that are open,
probably Notchview.

I have gotten up to the very top section of the Turner Trail and have
hit stuff that just can't be moved by hand and needs a chainsaw and
everything after that to the Berry Pond Road is a mess and really
needs chainsawing too.

I XC skied dowwn part of the Turner today and it was kind of fun!

Later,
Brad.

----- Original Message -----

From: Brad Herder

To: BerkshireNEMBA@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 6:08 PM

Subject: [BerkshireNEMBA] Pittsfield State Forest Trail Work - Sunday 9:30 AM

Mike Coyne and I are planning to do trail work Sunday on the Turner
Trail... and if we finish that, we're going to hit the Parker Brook
Trail if anyone is interested in helping out.

Chainsaws and handsaws will definitely be the tools of choice.

Meet at the Lulu parking lot (go straight past the guard shack).

Thanks,
Brad

Mike Coyne and I are planning to do trail work Sunday on the Turner
Trail... and if we finish that, we're going to hit the Parker Brook
Trail if anyone is interested in helping out.

Chainsaws and handsaws will definitely be the tools of choice.

Meet at the Lulu parking lot (go straight past the guard shack).

Thanks,
Brad

As part of an economic development effort between the State and the
town of Adams, there are big plans for the Greylock Glen.  Seems like
we've heard this before, no?  Part of the plan is a pretty extensive
network of trails.   Maybe if nothing else happens, maybe we can get
the trails! Who knows.

I have posted a PDF showing the trail plans on:

http://www.BerkshireNEMBA.org/GreylockTrails_Proposed_20081215.pdf

The mountain bike trails are in red on the flanks of Mount Greylock.

Josh Chittenden and I are going to go to a meeting tomorrow at 11 AM at
the Adams Town Hall to express Berkshire NEMBA's desire to be involved
in this project.  We intend to at least tell them what kind of trails
we like, but would also like to be involved in their layout and
possibly construction so maybe we'll have some awesome trails up there.

If you're interested, please let Josh or I know.  We'd love to have
your help!


Thanks,
Brad

Jamie and I worked on the Turner today.  What a mess!!!  With handsaws
we cleared the 1st 2 of the 4 singletrack sections up - with the
exceptions of 5 larger blowdowns towards the top of the 2nd section
(need a chainsaw).  There is one log in the 1st section we might be
able to jump over but its a bit high.  Moved a lot of limbs on the
higher sections but loads of work left.  The upper sections mostly can
be cleared with handsaws but there are still a number of trees which
are too big.  The area between Turner and the Skyline is a real
mess-lot of chainsawing needed.  It'd clear fast if we could get 4-5
of us together with 1 chainsaw and a few handsaws.  I've  got some
time Wed pm and Thurs if people are interested.
Mike

Hi,

 

The Pittsfield State Forest is an absolute mess from about 1/3 of the way up the mountain to the top.  Due to the inch of ice covering everything I didn’t do any work on the Turner Trail.  Going to wait for the ice to melt first.  Here are some pictures of what the circuit road looks like – it’s a mess the whole way around.  I suspect it’s like this everywhere around here and we’re all going to have a ton of work to do on our trails.  I hope Notchview isn’t like this cause I want to go XC skiing soon.

 

I’m going to hike around Berry Pond this morning at 9 AM if anyone’s interested in getting some cool pictures!   It’s a slow and tedious hike – wear YakTrak’s.  Then mountain biking at 1 PM from my house on dirt roads in Lanesboro (studless so might be paved roads).

 

Brad

 

Anyone feel like working on the Turner today?  The ice storm messed it
up a bit.  I tried to ride it last night and there's just a lot of
impassable crap down.

I need to run some errands and then I hope to maybe going around Berry
Pond circuit road on my bike, then I hope to have some time to go
chainsawing.

I'd estimate something like ... ride around 12:30, chainsaw around 2:30
maybe?  It would be awesome to have someone to drag stuff away as I
chainsaw or vice versa.

Call me 413-822-7020 if you want to go.  Otherwise, those times may not
be when I'm there - or - I might not go at all!

Thanks,
Brad

I don't know if any of you have been following any of the
developments at the Greylock Glen, but there are plans for a
hotel/conference center, nordic ski trails with snowmaking,
snowmobile trails and even mountain biking trails.

I was contacted about giving input from the mountain bike community
and I think we should try to get Berkshire NEMBA involved in the
project so if it happens, we can at least tell them what we want to
see in the way of mountain bike trails.  We might even be able to get
involved in building them.

So... if anyone has any interest in this, let me know.

I'm going to call our Northern Berkshire VP (Josh Chittenden)
tomorrow and explain it all to him.

I have really mixed feelings about this.  I'd love to see a great
network of trails up there, would love to be able to XC ski up there
before we get snow around here, but ... a hotel/conference
center/rules and regs prohibiting dogs or anything like that will be
a big bummer.  I liked Onota Lake better as it was before they did
all the improvements.

Anyway - if interested let me know.  I'd love to have someone take
the lead and represent Berkshire NEMBA.  Get involved!  Make a
difference in your community!

Thanks!
Brad
413-822-7020

That is good news. Especially that she hasnt totally blown us off. The southern
end of the trail is lots of fun to ride. H


--- On Tue, 12/9/08, Brad Herder <brad@...> wrote:

> From: Brad Herder <brad@...>
> Subject: [BerkshireNEMBA] Taconic Crest Trail Update
> To: BerkshireNEMBA@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008, 3:49 PM
> Hi all,
>
> I heard from Becky today that the Taconic Crest Trail
> Council is
> agreeable (with some concerns) to mountain bikes.  I think
> this is
> fantastic!
>
> On the Taconic Crest, there are several places which are
> too steep to
> mountain bike up, but most are fairly short.  There is one
> really long
> horrible downhill to Potter Mt. Road which dumps you out on
> Potter Mt.
> Road way down on the Hancock side.  It's going to take
> a monumental
> effort to do something about that, but I proposed creating
> a
> connection following a contour line over to somewhere near
> the top of
> Potter Mt Road to tie into the trails over there.
>
> I have not given up on working with the DCR to make the PSF
> an
> absolutely fantastic place to mountain bike and I hope you
> guys don't
> either.  We've really made a lot of progress.  I know
> we all want more
> freedom, less red tape, but ... this is the process.
>
> Anyway - we'll see what happens.
>
> Thanks!
> Brad
>
>
>
> Here is Becky's note:
>
> From: Barnes, Rebecca (DCR)
> Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:38 PM
> To: Herder, Bradford J
> Subject: Taconic Crest tr. update
>
> Hello Brad -
>
> I met with the Taconic Crest Trail Council yesterday to
> propose
> opening up the TCT where feasible through PSF to Mt. Bikes.
>  All where
> receptive to that idea, however they were concerned that
> some sections
> may be too steep or wet to accommodate bike traffic. I
> explained that
> prior to opening up the trail (or section of), we would
> assess the
> current layout to determine if the use of Mt. Bikes would
> be
> appropriate or if a new layout may be more sustainable.
> They were also
> concerned with additional widening (clearing) of the trail
> that it
> might entice motorized traffic. I assured the group that
> the trail
> would remain a narrow corridor as currently maintained (the
> Mt. Bike
> community has similar concerns). So in the near future lets
> sit down
> together and determine what section(s) of TCT would provide
> the best
> opportunities for Mt. Bikes loops and then will assess on
> the ground
> condition and location based on priority. Your thoughts?
>
>
> Rebecca Barnes
> West Region Trail Coordinator
> Department of Conservation and Recreation
> Division of State Parks and Recreation

Hi all,

I heard from Becky today that the Taconic Crest Trail Council is
agreeable (with some concerns) to mountain bikes.  I think this is
fantastic!

On the Taconic Crest, there are several places which are too steep to
mountain bike up, but most are fairly short.  There is one really long
horrible downhill to Potter Mt. Road which dumps you out on Potter Mt.
Road way down on the Hancock side.  It's going to take a monumental
effort to do something about that, but I proposed creating a
connection following a contour line over to somewhere near the top of
Potter Mt Road to tie into the trails over there.

I have not given up on working with the DCR to make the PSF an
absolutely fantastic place to mountain bike and I hope you guys don't
either.  We've really made a lot of progress.  I know we all want more
freedom, less red tape, but ... this is the process.

Anyway - we'll see what happens.

Thanks!
Brad



Here is Becky's note:

From: Barnes, Rebecca (DCR)
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2008 1:38 PM
To: Herder, Bradford J
Subject: Taconic Crest tr. update

Hello Brad -

I met with the Taconic Crest Trail Council yesterday to propose
opening up the TCT where feasible through PSF to Mt. Bikes.  All where
receptive to that idea, however they were concerned that some sections
may be too steep or wet to accommodate bike traffic. I explained that
prior to opening up the trail (or section of), we would assess the
current layout to determine if the use of Mt. Bikes would be
appropriate or if a new layout may be more sustainable. They were also
concerned with additional widening (clearing) of the trail that it
might entice motorized traffic. I assured the group that the trail
would remain a narrow corridor as currently maintained (the Mt. Bike
community has similar concerns). So in the near future lets sit down
together and determine what section(s) of TCT would provide the best
opportunities for Mt. Bikes loops and then will assess on the ground
condition and location based on priority. Your thoughts?


Rebecca Barnes
West Region Trail Coordinator
Department of Conservation and Recreation
Division of State Parks and Recreation

Hey Brad,
    Just wondering if you've heard anything more from Doug Bruce re:
Constitution Hill.  We'll walk it with him whenever he is available,
just let us know when.  If he already has a plan in mind let us know
and maybe we could do a little work before the snow flies.
                                     Thanks!

I think we should leave that up to each individual to decide.


--- On Mon, 12/1/08, meanwheels@... <meanwheels@...> wrote:

> From: meanwheels@... <meanwheels@...>
> Subject: Re: [BerkshireNEMBA] Ruth's Acting Debut
> To: BerkshireNEMBA@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Monday, December 1, 2008, 10:20 AM
> Hey that came out ok except for the quality of the video in
> that its hard to have much contrast in the fall.
> BTW where those ghosts working on the trail? What do you
> mean we didn't leave you video- who wants to watch
> Harry's butt sniping prickers any way??? Ruth