The very final YouthWorks group in Pine Hill Park for the summer of 2011 arrived Monday Morning in good spirits. A great deal was in store in order to try to finish off the long sought project for 2011 on and around Lichen Rock. The introduction to the park was followed by a quick hike up to Overlook Rocks. The group got immediately to work in various tasks.

A small rogue special forces team was sent far down the Stegosaurus Trail to get a few water problems worked out with Phil and Nate. They did not return until well after lunch from cleaning up multiple projects along the trail. (I finally got a chance to ride this just today and am very thankful and impressed with what got put to bed so to speak)

A very sturdy rock crew went up on top of Lichen rock and began connecting the rocks through to where the large rock that had fallen into the path had recently been removed. Many large sized rocks were slung in with our home designed canvas sling and fit wonderfully into place. A true group of Italian Masons!

The pit crew worked feverishly and tirelessly to load Nemo with ample amounts of needed dirt to pave up and over Lichen Rock.

The second and final day of the summer brought everyone back in and back to work. Again the dirt flowethed ; ) While the rock crew tirelessly continued to refine the final section of rock bridge for the landscape fabric. One lone and “five-fingered” running shoe person with a fatigued back from the previous day, instead set herself to building the ultimate banked corner... rolling rocks down to form a perfectly arcing segment of trail.

Enough dirt was flowing from the dirt crew that a couple of the buckets that were not going into “Nemo” were diverted up to this newly formed banked corner along with reforming the older west side pits so that an interesting contoured riding section was formed.

At just about noon time on the dot... despite the insistence of the oracle iPhone that nothing was coming... a massive rain storm formed on top of us... dropping the temperature by about 20º and dumping a massive amount of water on the group. The sun could be seen on all sides of us... but the storm cell seemed to sit on us for a good amount of time. At last this past and a very huddled wet and cold group went out onto the Overlook Rocks to eat lunch and warm up.

Despite all the very wet people... no one left and quickly got back to work in pits that had about 2 feet of water in them. At 2:30pm the final crew of the season walked out of the park with only about 25ft of rock bridge left to be dirted in.

As an addendum, a local group of kids from the Rock Climbing gym came in the next day and the entirety of the trail up and over Lichen Rock was at last finished.

A great big thank you to this group and all the others leading up to this that allowed us to complete this very large undertaking for the summer of 2011. The trail is now fully open to the rave reviews of the many people who use the park. This will be a beautiful section way out in the outer corner for people hoping to get to the Overlook Rocks via the Suspension Bridge.

My sincere appreciation,                 

-Michael Smith