S & S Trail Services LLC strives to provide sustainable recreation trail experiences for Mountain Bikers, Hikers and Equestrians across the globe. Our company uses the most modern trail building techniques to ensure a long lasting, quality experience for these user groups. Between our two owners we have over 25 years of experience as both trail users and trail builders for all of these recreation types.
S & S Trail Services specializes in hybrid projects working with volunteers and providing crew supervision for community trail building exercises. We have over 200 miles of constructed trail in our repertoire, as well as many trail rehabilitation projects. We also are well versed in construction of wooden trail structures such as bridges, boardwalks, and technical trail features for mountain biking.
In our current climate of rampant obesity, global warming, nature deficit disorder and a general movement away from play outdoors, we see trails as an opportunity to help with all of these problems.
- What better way for a child to learn to be active than a hike alongside a creek not far from home?
- What about providing cyclists with a safe alternative to riding in the streets, allowing them to enjoy nature as they pedal to work?
- How about providing bike parks to children in urban areas so that they can not only play the extreme games on their computers, but also go outside and participate in them?
- If we provide these opportunities, won't we in turn create environmentalists?
- People who yearn to live and play outdoors will stand up and be counted when the time comes, voting to protect our environment and fund our parks.
- Horseback riding on trails can also help us reach back into our heritage with a trail ride experience much like the first settlers must have had, providing educational components to our recreational pursuits.
Purtis Creek State Park
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery on Apr. 10, 2010 - 3:27 pm
April 5-7
During the first week of April S&S Trails returned to Purtis Creek State Park to build a rerouted section of trail and a small bridge over a creek crossing. We had originally done a one-day consultation at the park back on February 19th while we were on our way to teach the DORBA school at Sid Richardson Ranch. During that consultation in February we used a clinometer to measure the hillside slope and lay out a flag line that would drop gradually down to the creek crossing and then rise back up to the existing trail. When we returned in April we used Sam the dozer to build that section, and she was also useful in ferrying out materials to build the bridge and carrying away excavated dirt to build up a low area in another section of trail.
Timberlane Maintenance
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Apr. 10, 2010 - 12:02 pm
March 29-31 Timberlane Utility District maintenance
At the end of March, S&S Trails took a quick trip to Spring to work for our good friend Bud Gessel at TLUD. Some of the crushed granite trails needed a little resurfacing due to erosion, so we called up our local co-worker Chuck and got busy laying down more material. We also used our little dozer (affectionately named Sam) to do some drainage work to prevent future erosion problems, in addition to using her to load crushed granite into the dump buggy to carry it out to the trouble spots.
PTBA Annual Conference
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Mar. 30, 2010 - 12:50 pm
March 22-27 PTBA Conference
S&S Trails traveled to Eureka Springs, Arkansas to participate in the first members-only conference for the Professional Trail Builders Association (PTBA). In the past a conference was held every year that was open to the public and governmental agencies, in addition to the professional trail contractors that comprise the association. As a member of the board of directors, Susan was involved with discussions to change the conference format to an every other year event that would alternate with the National Trails Symposium and IMBA biennial summits. Because those two conferences occur on even-number years, the large PTBA conference that’s open to the public will occur in odd-number years starting with 2011.
Katy Memorial Herman Hospital
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery on Mar. 25, 2010 - 12:23 pm
Several months ago S&S Trails was contacted by Terri DeLoach, the Director of Customer Experience Management at Katy Memorial Hermann hospital, to explore the possibilities for installing a crushed granite walking path for staff and employees to use. Every year the hospital sponsors an employee contribution campaign to add features that improve the environment for staff and patients alike. For example, a past project created an outdoor seating area and healing garden, complete with a beautiful rock enclosed fountain that provides a calming place for people to sit and visit or meditate. When Terri searched for Texas trail builders on the internet she found our webpage and decided that she liked what she saw and that we were relatively local, so she decided to give us a call. (Incidentally this is the first confirmed contract that we have received solely from the existence of our webpage and not from word-of-mouth advertising or a personal referral. Thanks Megan and Marty for doing such a great job with our online marketing!)
Pedernales Falls State Park
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery, Uncategorized on Mar. 2, 2010 - 8:36 am
S&S Trails completed the horse trail reroutes that were begun last fall. The construction process was plagued by delays due to bad weather and some bureaucratic challenges to overcome, but fortunately we were able to work hard when we were allowed to do so and we managed to complete everything by the March 1 deadline.
The project completion deadline had to do with the fact that some of the proposed reroutes were located in golden cheeked warbler habitat, an endangered songbird that nests in the hill country region during the spring. Federal and state guidelines mandate that no mechanized equipment can be used in those habitat regions from March 1 through September to prevent interfering with the birds’ nesting and mating patterns. Therefore we were on tight schedule to get everything completed in a timely manner to comply with regulations enforced by the state park’s regional resources manger.
2010 DORBA/Lone Star Trail Building School
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Feb. 23, 2010 - 8:27 am
February 20 and 21 Ryan and Susan returned to Sid Richardson Boy Scout Ranch in Runaway Bay (about 1 hour northwest of Fort Worth) to teach our annual trail building school to Dallas Off Road Bicycling Association (DORBA) trail stewards and regional land managers. On our way there, we stopped at Purtis Creek State Park on Friday the 19th to do a trail assessment and provide some consultation services at the park manager’s request.
The DORBA school is organized by Rick Buckley, a dedicated member of DORBA and organizer of the local IMBA National Mountain Bike Patrol program. Through his relationship with the Boy Scouts of America organization, he facilitates access to the scout ranch property which provides an excellent training environment for beginner and advanced trail builders alike.
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Canyon Creek Trail Updates
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery on Feb. 11, 2010 - 5:29 pm
The beginning of this year saw S&S Trails back at Canyon Creek making some of the last improvements to be done on the trail system. These improvements include a half mile addition of trail, half that will be great for mountain biking and half that will be great for hiking. Also included in this scope of work was a rebuild of the two bridges that had been washed out by a huge rain in the past.
Excruciation Time!!
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Jan. 11, 2010 - 4:10 pm
On January 2nd, S&S Trail Services hosted the 6th Excruciation Exam. We had a record 146 competitors on the 81 mile course. Unfortunately, wet weather caused us to have to take out a few sections of trail, namely The Wall at Rocky Hill and The Palisades at Bluff Creek Ranch.
Scott Henry (Team Hammerhead Bicycles) won the mens’ race in 5:12:51. Henry was in a lead group of 7 riders on the roads over to Rocky Hill and barely slowed going through the checkpoint going into the 21 mile lap. Tristan Uhl (Southern Elite/Sun & Ski, (5:23:34) was the closest chaser, keeping Henry almost in sight through Uhl’s home course of Rocky Hill before hitting the road with a 3 minute deficit. Uhl admitted to slowing down into the headwind on the way back and thought that he might get caught by Chad Hardt (5:25:30).
The womens race was won by Shae Rainer (Trek VW). Shae went into the singletrack at Warda in 1st and never relented the lead. She was followed by Claire McKenna (Hammerhead).
We appreciate everyones participation. We even had a few racers thank us saying that the race was their favorite and they look forward to it every year.
Video of Warda Section
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery on Jan. 5, 2010 - 10:16 pm
A year ago, we built a new section of mountain bike specific trail at Warda’s Bluff Creek Ranch that we think came out pretty good. Here’s a video of it thanks to Chris Jenkins!
Senna Hills, Austin, Tx
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery, S&S Trails Blog on Dec. 3, 2009 - 1:29 pm
S&S Trail Services recently completed the first natural surface trail system in the Senna Hills community on Bee Cave Road in west Austin. The project development followed a convoluted path and came about in part due to a referral from our former business partner, who was unavailable to complete the project himself when the opportunity arose. Last spring several members of the board of directors for the homeowner’s association (HOA) decided that a trail would be a nice amenity for the neighborhood. The Senna Hills community is near the Barton Creek West neighborhood, which has trails that were developed many years ago and our company has performed maintenance work on over the past few years. Apparently homeowners in Senna Hills would sometimes venture over to Barton Creek West to utilize the trail system, as they had no trails available in their own back yard. The HOA board members knew that a nice parcel of land owned by the community was not going to be utilized for building new homes, and would therefore be available as protected green space that could have a trail built on it to allow the homeowners to walk and bicycle in the woods.
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