LOVE THE TRAILS? Help out and

TRAIL BUILDING

COME AND GET DIRTY!

IT CAN BE A TRULY BOGGIN' AFFAIR

kneeling in the sludge with midges in your face and rain dripping down your neck, whilst trying to place a few boulders...

But it's not always like this! Some days we're out there on the hill, under blue skies, enjoying a bit of craic with the crew whilst working away on the trails. It really is a great way to put something back into our local landscape - create a better place to do the sport and recreation we all love, develop an awareness of sustainability and how to protect the environment and ultimately secure Balquhidder as great location in the National Park for future generations of locals and visitors to enjoy.

On this page we share how we go about all our trail building and maintenance activities...

USEFUL BUTTONS

REPORT A TRAIL ISSUE

READ THE CREW SAFETY BRIEF

RECORD A TRAIL WORK SESSION

LOG AN INCIDENT

UNDERSTANDING TRAIL BUILDING

Creating and maintaining quality, hand-crafted, natural trails requires a lot more than clearing a few sticks off an old hill path, or interesting line.

We seek to be wholly SAFETY, SUSTAINABILITY and ENVIRONMENTALLY focused, developing trails that are:-

Safe for multi-purpose use.
Sustainable, and able to stand the test of time.
Environmentally friendly and wholly harmonious with their natural surroundings.

If the trail is designed to be safe for multi-use including mountain bikers, it must have a clear line of sight, no dangerous surprises and ideally some degree of flow. Critical to the routing is the need to keep all trail users safe, so where trails cross or emerge onto forest roads that might have vehicles, walkers, horses or other bikers, there must be clear line of sight on the approach.

Whilst the line of a trail is often the first consideration in trail building, in a wet place like Balquhidder, surface material is equally if not more important. If a trail is routed across soft or flat ground, or water drainage has not been considered, within a very short time, once the surface vegetation is worn away from boots or tyres, the soft black soil beneath will soon become a mud-fest of sludge with ever-deepening wet holes.

With Balquhidder having so much rain, as the trail crew we therefore find ourselves spending a significant amount of time sorting trail surfaces, draining, repairing and reinforcing them as necessary. It's a time consuming process that requires patience and persistence, and in some very wet and boggy sections, we simply have to resort to re-routing the trail to higher, more robust ground.

Either way, making an old boggy trail dry, robust and enjoyable for everyone is hugely rewarding!

WANT TO JOIN IN?

We're a pretty friendly bunch, so if you want to come along and get involved in trail building CLICK HERE TO LET US KNOW.

Once we get your details we'll add you into the Balquhidder Trail Crew and our WhatsApp group where you'll see who's heading out, what their doing, and when.

If you haven't done much trail building before it doesn't matter. We welcome any willing and keen individuals who just want to get stuck in.

All we ask is that you come with a smile, read our safety brief and adhere to our code of conduct.

To find out a more about our trail building principles scroll down or, if you're interested in our longer term plans, take a look at our 3yr DEVELOPMENT PLAN in the footer.

trackING & REPAIRING trail issues

Though Balquhidder offers only unmanaged wild and natural trails used under the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, the trail crew strives to keep the trails as safe as possible at all times and deal with trail maintenance needs as issues arise.

To achieve this we need:-

Eyes on the ground and regular trail inspections to identify hazards and issues.
A quick and efficient response mechanism to allow us to assess the risk to users and then organise remedial work.

We recognise that daily trail users are the best and most regular "eyes on the trail" and represent the best source of up to date information on trail conditions. For this reason we have a simple online TRAIL ISSUE REPORTING FORM that allows anyone to submit details of a trail issue or hazard using any mobile device.

All reported issues and hazards display in our real-time TRAIL ISSUES + HAZARDS REPORT which we use to trigger a visit to assess the section concerned and plan necessary repairs.

TRACKING COMPLETED WORK

We also log all trail work conducted, which then not only helps us analyse the work done on each trail over time, but also record, recognise and acknowledge the significant number of volunteer hours that go into keeping the trails safe.

The log also serves as a means to track volunteer time for those doing either their Duke of Edinburgh or Trailbuilder Awards.

BTC 10 Trail Building Commandments

Over the years, from hard-learned lessons, we have established principles that now underpin all our activity. This means that we not only build trails and features that will last, but we also comply with trail building best practice laid down by DMBinS (Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland) and any conditions determined by our land owner permissions.

Here are what we call our 10 trail building commandments that guide all our work! If you come and join us this will keep you straight...

STRUCTURED + ORGANISED APPROACH: All trail work should be conducted in organised groups and be led by one of the BTC lead trail builders. All volunteers should be briefed before each session in line with the BTC crew briefing. Work should only take place in the designated areas set out by the association.
CLOSE AREAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Work parties should close off sections where maintenance or construction work is in progress that might pose a risk to users.
ACCESSIBLE TO ALL: All trails should be built to be accessible by all level of walker or rider. If there are any really challenging sections on any given trail, ensure there are easier "bypass" routes. Ideally ensure there is a feature at the start of each trail that indicates the general level of technicality expected, so there are no surprises for users.
DRAINAGE: All trails surfaces should be graded to slope downwards or outwards by at least 5-10 degrees to promote water run-off, avoiding flat spots that will quickly form puddles. At regular intervals and at any hollows, dig in off-let channels to remove water from the trail surface.
ARMOURING: Where ground soft, strip back the top 4-6 inches of black top soil (which turns to sludge in the wet) to get down to harder-wearing brown or grey base base/mineral soil. The surface should then be armoured with a layer of stone and natural rubble mixed with base soil so it can withstand foot and tyre wear and water erosion.
ROUTING: If it is not possible to strengthen or bridge soft and boggy ground, the section should be re-routed onto higher, drier ground.
HAND TOOLS & NATURAL MATERIALS ONLY: Only hand tools are permitted. Only natural materials. e.g. fallen logs, stones and base soil can be used. Trail builders are also NOT permitted to fabricate anything using planks of wood, screws or nails. These are un-natural and eventually rot and become a hazard. Nails and screws are hazardous to wildlife, people and tyres!
LEAVE NO TRACE: Unfortunately fresh digging and remedial trail work will always be obvious at first. There's no avoiding that, but don't worry as it will soon naturalise and grow in. All trail builders are however expected to make every effort to try and "naturalise" freshly dug ground with moss, grass, conifer needles etc as far as possible, so it ideally looks completely natural in its environment.
ONGOING INSPECTIONS: As a minimum trails should be fully and thoroughly inspected monthly and any hazards or issues reported to focus and prioritise work for future trail building sessions. We are blessed to have an active walking and riding community so track any social posts for notifications of work required.
ONGOING MAINTENANCE: Trail surfaces should be clear of any debris and any litter collected. Verges should be maintained in summer, trimming back branches, bracken or overgrowth to provide a clear line of sight and good visibility. This is particularly important on the inside of corners and on approaches to intersections.

BECOME A MASTER TRAILBUILDER

The BTC Trail Builder Awards scheme has been developed by the association to help create structure, enhance safety and assure quality in its volunteer trail work.

The scheme is currently being piloted as part of a wider plan to deliver youth and adult volunteer training and qualification opportunities. To find out more click here