TALES: Maintenance recap & trail maps link

It's been far too long ...
It was a tremendous turnout for trail maintenance Saturday, with one group working the High Road and another on Paintball. Although onsies and twosies continually touch up the trail, it’s been far too long since the last scheduled OMBA maintenance day. After riding the trails for more than two years now, I was amazed at the beauty you miss at Mach 1, and saw a lot I’d never seen before – including a waterfall and some decade-old, hidden trail signs.

Didn’t get a chance to touch base with the guys on Paintball, but I know Tim was bragging about his new, gas-powered weed eater, so I’m sure they made quite a dent in the ever-encroaching jungle and remaining typhoon wreckage.

On the High Road, we had Lance, Jason, Kevin and myself, plus a couple of locals who pitched in for about 30 minutes. The humidity was a killer, and I can’t remember feeling so exhausted after a few hours on the trail. Two Camelbaks weren’t enough, and Jason had sweat bubbling out of the tops of his shoes when he walked like he’d just made a stream crossing!

When all was said and done, we had cleared about 7 km of fallen trees and brush, dug drainage ditches, widened some washed out turns, and rebuilt a rotted bridge (this was a definite Jason & Eric sitcom, and I managed to limit my falls down the adjacent hill to one).

We also posted brand new trail signs to make navigating the jungle easier for newbies. Was pretty fulfilling to see a couple riders, and a half dozen hikers, enjoy the fruits of our labor.

It started raining two hours after we finished and hadn’t let up by midday Sunday, so I guess we’ll see how the refurbished trail feels to ride next week when it dries out.

New Link
Just added this Okinawa Trail Map link from the archaic but still “out there” old OMBA website to the Fat Tire Tales… blog. It’ll be a standing link on the right, and it includes good descriptions of the trails. One caveat is that its about eight years old, so some of the trails no longer exist (Buddy Junction and the Hole) due to local construction and others have been added. It’s always good to check with current OMBA members to confirm before going it alone for the first time.

For those of you with me for a while, yes, I’m still building a newer route map, but the lack of decent and detailed local maps is a challenge.