I’ve long intended to bring my recent campaign of tread renewal/trail smoothing from the Overlook Trail to the Montini Preserve, and today I finally did. There had been a short section that I had had my eye on for quite some time, as it checked two big boxes for needing attention: 1) a really rocky and awkward trail, and 2) a section so awkward that hikers and runners had started a mini trail around the awkward part, thus needlessly widening the trail.

Therefore this morning I got our trail wagon out of our toolshed in the Mountain Cemetery, loaded up some buckets with aggregate, threw some tools and all the rest in the back of my SUV and headed up to the trail. Entering from Norrbom Road on Rattlesnake Cutoff, I pulled the wagon into the middle of the Montini Preserve to the section I wanted to fix.

The job entailed using our cordless rock chisel to both chisel rocks out of the trail as well as chip down sections of bedrock to below where we want the trail surface to be. Then I covered the section with a thin layer of aggregate (you never have as much aggregate as you would like), and since the aggregate was too damp to properly tamp, I dusted a thin layer of soil on top and tamped it all down.

To prevent the small rogue trail from continuing to be used, I piled some rocks there which also served to bolster the downhill edge of the trail and retain the newly-laid gravel while still allowing water to flow off the trail (see picture of the end result).

After doing all that in about an hour and forty-five minutes, I packed everything up in the wagon and was about to pull out when along came an elderly couple. I paused at the trail verge to let them pass, and watched them as they walked over the newly-renewed section of trail. To them, it was just part of the trail they were hiking, nothing special.

I turned away, smiled to myself, and grabbed the handle of my wagon.