Trailbuilding Day at Buffalo Creek with the IMBA Trail Care Crew

I ventured out to Buffalo Creek, CO for a day of instructional trailbuilding with IMBA and its Trail Care Crew. It was a fun and exhausting day. This past Thursday, I attended a trailbuilding workshop hosted by IMBA in Golden. It was very informational and helped prepare for what was in store for Saturday.

The morning began by waking up at 6am and getting ready to head off. The drive is about an hour and 45 minutes, but I thought it would be good for me to see what these "IMBA Epic" trails were all about. Got to the park at 8:30 and we headed off the the build site, a 4 mile bike ride in to the forest. We were instructed on the kinds of tools and then we broke into groups of 5 with a Crew lead. The first section of the new trail was pretty east to build. We built about a mile of new rerouted trail and then broke for lunch. The second half of the day was a little harder. We were in a section of the forest where there was a big fire. Lots of burnt trees with a ton of buffalo grass which had to be removed. It was pretty hard work with no tree cover and the sun was pretty warm. After the building was done, we headed back to the campsite and chilled out for a while. There was mention of a group ride, but I was pretty tired. I decided to head home and get some rest.

All in all, it was a great day and I feel like I contributed to something that means so much to me, giving back to mountain biking.