Over the last year Bloomer Park‘s mountain bike route has become increasingly better marked, but unfortunately some of the installed signs had become vandalized. The former Trail Coordinator saved some of these, and today I finally got around to cutting them down into smaller pieces that can be screwed to posts or trees.
These should be quite useful at Bloomer, as there’s a few places which could benefit from additional marking, and it makes me happy to repurpose what had been scrap into something usable. I imagine that when River Bends undergoes its next round of marking we’ll use something similar to what Bloomer will end up with: a combination of tree/post based markers like these and the typical ground-inserted marker.
Out of three 72″ Carsonite Dual Sided Markers I was able to salvage 16 11″ markers and two 8″ markers. With the reflective decals being 3″ tall this should allow for the taller pieces to hold three decals and the smaller to hold two†. Each piece had a 1/4″ hole drilled in the top and bottom, centered, 1/2″ from each end.
While cutting these I made sure to wear a dust-filtering respirator and safety glasses, but I should have worn some nitrile or perhaps leather gloves. I seem to have ended up with a few fiberglass splinters which are small enough that I can’t see them, but whose presence is clearly known whenever I touch something. I hope they work themselves out soon.
† Sizing based on Rockart, Inc’s Tree Hugger marker recommendation that markers be chosen 2″ taller than the combined height of all decals. This is to allow room for the drilled holes and decals while keeping the marker compact.