Our next FMST Eno River section workday is Saturday March 30^th, 9AM-3PM, meeting at the Pump station trailhead, 4023 Rivermont Road in Durham.

Our main project will be to repair the steps on the Nancy Rhodes Creek trail bridge on the MST.

Some of you worked on the repairs to that bridge or remember that the bridge was out of service for a while.

The story is that in early 2019 there was a heavy rainstorm with significant flooding. Flood water and flood debris damaged the bridge when the area was still rather muddy due to the flooding

Talking with the park superintendent at the time he said it might take several years to get the bridge replaced. I told Keith I did not think it looked too bad and that we could just fix it. Want to know how we did this? You might want to ask Bill Boyarsky or John McCulloch.

We fixed it, keeping the original beams and the same location. Most of the wood we replaced as the old decking was not in good shape even before the storm. Handrails were also added for safety reasons. When there is an intense rainstorm a deluge of water can come roaring down this stream. It is one of the problems with trail maintenance. 99.99% of the time everything is fine but there are those brief moments when all sorts of problems arise.

As usual, we did our best to do an outstanding job and make sure the trail is safe, sustainable, pleasant – all those good things. In this case the bridge is still in great shape. However, there is a part of this project that is not quite so good which is the steps up to the bridge. This also happens. We sometimes come up short of doing an outstanding job. In those cases we go back out and fix the problem, which is what we plan to do on this March 30^th workday.

What was the steps on this end of the bridge has eroded down to a random pile of rocks, leaving a rather large step up to the bridge. The other end of the bridge has the same problem. Those of you who know me well will know what I am going to say next: “I think we should have used larger rocks. Time to use the Spartacus.”

In fairness the volunteers working on those steps did a great job and the steps were fine for a while, but water and erosion are powerful forces. Also, all you great volunteers were starting to tire after rebuilding the bridge so we may not have put as much effort into the steps as we could have.

In addition to working on the bridge, we will be taking other minor trail repair projects in this area.

For the workdays you will need to dress appropriately for the weather. Wear work clothes you can get dirty, long pants, boots or solid shoes, bring water, snacks, lunch if you plan to stay all day.

We will provide tools.