IMBA Trail Crew Training

Today I attended a trail construction training class presented by IMBA, the International Mountain Bicycling Association.From the IMBA website:

The Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew, on the road since 1997, is IMBA's grassroots educational program and an authority on sustainable trail building practices. Two teams of professional trail experts travel year-round throughout the United States and beyond, leading trail work sessions, meeting with land managers and working with IMBA-affiliated clubs and the communities they serve to improve mountain biking opportunities.

Although mountain bicycling is in the name, the trail building philosophies suggested by IMBA benefit all trail users. Building sustainable trails is the overarching theme.

In the morning there was a three hour classroom training. The instructors, Steve and Morgan, presented the philosophy of successful trails and the techniques to build them.

After lunch, we met up again at Tryon Park for the trail work portion of the class. We began the construction of a new trail that had been flagged by the GROC leaders and IMBA yesterday. The work was pretty much identical to the work we've already been doing at Tryon and Bay Park West. GROC has been leading those efforts and has been following the IMBA trail building practices.

The class was good reinforcement of the philosophy and techniques I've been learning from GROC.