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.
S&S Trails Excruciation Exam Flyer!
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Dec. 3, 2009 - 1:00 pm
Senna Hills Trails, Austin, Tx
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Oct. 26, 2009 - 2:56 pm
So, we’ve started a new project out at Senna Hills with the cooperation of the Homeowners Association, and the MUD, that will be a 2.5 mile long system initially. The project, located just west of Austin, is a high end neighborhood with rolling hill country terrain surrounding it. We’ve only begun the project a week ago and made some pretty good progress, despite all the rain. We even had a pretty successful volunteer workday this past Saturday. Its great when the neighbors all get behind a project! The board even offered for us to use volunteers in this case, as we were planning on strictly a turn key project.
Pictures and progress reports to follow soon!
Pedernales Falls Equestrian Trails
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery, S&S Trails Blog on Oct. 26, 2009 - 2:51 pm
So, September kept S&S Trails busy with reroutes on the horse trails at Pedernales Falls State Park, and with exploring some contract opportunities for the coming months. We were able to finish about half of the work that needed to be done at the state park. The rest will be finished in November, when the funding is complete.
We used a couple of new to us techniques that really helped make the project go well. We were rerouting trails that were fall line, and putting in contour trail. This also meant we needed to close down the old sections of trail. We wanted to rehab the trails as best we could. This meant that the hard packed earth had to be dealt with. Typically, this would involve scoring the ground somehow, but the trails had eroded down to bedrock in many locations, making scarification almost impossible. Also, we had this issue of all this top soil we were removing from the new sections of trail, that would just get moved downhill. Our solution came in the form of a Bradco Tilt Attach. We used our blade to get the bench cuts started and a second machine equipped with the tilt attach to scoop up the spoils. We then deposited the spoils on the old trail tread, filling it as well as we could. This helped in a number of ways, the largest is it all but eliminated the hand work that needed to be done on the new sections of trail. True, there were still track marks to get rid of and some masking to do, but not the large amount of labor intensive dirt raking.
Sandy Basin Project
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Aug. 31, 2009 - 2:42 pm
August 24-25 we worked on the Sandy Basin project near Mt. Hood, Oregon as subcontractors for IMBA. Earlier in the month we had ridden the Umpqua River Trail with our friends Jill and Chris (formerly of the IMBA Trail Care Crew) so they knew we were in town and available to work. Jason Wells of IMBA Trail Solutions is the on-site project manager and asked if we could help out by doing some hand tool construction and supervising a small crew of BLM staff in charge of bench-cutting while he ran the mini-excavator on a road-to-trail conversion. We helped Jason design the trail around the road he was working on, trying to get rid of a straight fall line shot. We were happy to oblige, and enjoyed working with everyone on the project. The land is beautiful, forested with stands of enormous pine trees and almost no underbrush. The soil was great to work in too, though after cutting bench by hand on 50% sideslopes, we were reminded of why we like mechanized construction to knock out the bulk of the work before finishing up the trail with hand tools. We also helped construct a 12 foot long, 3 foot high retaining wall to cover a VERY large rock that was unearthed in the main line of the trail. We also used a come-a-long to winch out a large tree stump that was in the way. Ahh, levereage!
We always enjoy partnering with IMBA on projects, and it’s a nice way to include some work in our summer vacations so we can write off some travel expenses. Hopefully we will get to do the same next year, as the BLM project manager has plans for a 15-mile trail expansion on the site. Many thanks go to IMBA for keeping us employed and having fun in the process.
White Salmon Project
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Project Gallery on Aug. 23, 2009 - 2:17 pm
S&S Trails worked on two short projects in the Pacific Northwest while escaping the Texas summer heat. The first was a planned one that we learned of through our membership in the Professional Trail Builders Association, while the second was a spur-of-the-moment opportunity that arose due to our collegial relationship with IMBA.
August 15-16 we worked in a small town just across the Columbia River from Hood River, Oregon. A private landowner decided to buy his wife a mountain bike trail for her birthday and he contacted the PTBA, which then posted the job listing for its members to bid on. Most of our colleagues in the industry were busy with larger projects and we had already planned to be in the area visiting friends, so it worked out well for us to go build for a couple days on this private piece of land. Our friends Scott and Rita (former Wisconsin IMBA reps) helped us out, and we four were very productive over the weekend. It also helped that birthday-girl Jeanne and her husband Steve were hard workers and wanted to be involved with the process of designing and building sustainable trail on their land.
Video Time Lapse shot by Scott at FX4.net
Southeastern Equestrian Trails Conference follow-up report
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Aug. 13, 2009 - 3:52 pm
Susan flew back to her home state of Florida from July 9-12 to attend SETC 2009 at the Paramount Plaza Hotel in Gainesville. The invitation to do a presentation came about as a result of meeting conference chair Helen Koehler at the 2008 National Trails Symposium in Little Rock, Arkansas during an equestrian trail user’s summit. When Helen learned of Susan’s psychology and trail building background, she requested a talk focused on those areas with an additional sustainability component as that was central to the 2009 conference theme.
SETC 2009 was a resounding success, with over 200 participants and a packed schedule of presenters and vendors. In addition to the focus on environmental and social sustainability of equestrian trails, the Florida Cracker Horse was also featured prominently as a breed of horse whose heritage and bloodlines are in need of protection. The Florida State Parks System keeps a wild herd of the horses on state land, and uses another string of trained horses to help patrol and do work in the parks. One of these equine “state park employees” was even used during a conference session to help demonstrate what facilities are needed to make equestrian trailheads and parking lots easily accessible to trail users.
Susan also had the opportunity to renew her acquaintances with many friends and colleagues in the equestrian trail community, including Jan Hancock (author of “Guidebook for Equestrian Trailhead Design”), Deb Balliet of the Equestrian Land Conservation Resource, Alex Weiss from Florida Office of Greenways and Trails and United States Pony Club, Bobby and Joanne Mitchell from Southern Appalachian Back Country Horsemen of America, and Stephanie McCommon of the American Quarter Horse Association. Susan also met several new folks representing groups such as the American Horse Council, Pennsylvania Equine Council, and Sustainable Stables.
Overall it was an enjoyable and productive trip. In addition to the opportunities for company marketing and professional development, Susan also had the pleasure of visiting with her parents John and Nancy who drove up from Venice to attend her talk. To learn more about SETC, please visit their website at:
http://www.southeasternequestriantrails.com/
White Salmon Project
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Aug. 13, 2009 - 11:54 am
S&S Trails is about to embark on it’s first totally private mountain bike trail in White Salmon, OR. The property looks nice and we’ve gotten some rain this week, so we’ll see how the building goes this weekend!
Southeast Equestrian Trails Conference
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Jul. 13, 2009 - 12:22 pm
This past weekend, Susan Stormer represented S&S Trails at SETC. Susan was a presenter at the conference doing a presentation on sustainable trail building and the psychological benefits of trail use. Her presentation was to the entire conference and was very well received.
The conference also gave S&S a chance to strengthen relationships with the Equine Land Conservation Resource and the American Quarter Horse Association. More about the conference from Susan soon!
We made the news!
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on Jun. 5, 2009 - 5:36 pm
Channel 2 in Houston.
Video!
American Quarter Horse Association- Quarterfest!
Posted by Ryan Spates in S&S Trails Blog on May. 7, 2009 - 2:31 pm
Quarterfest May 1-3. S&S Trail Services went to Murfreesboro, TN at the invitation of Stephanie McCommon from the American Quarter Horse Association. Stephanie took a trail building class from us three years ago at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, and she remembered us when she was developing the training schedule for the first ever AQHA conference. Equestrian trail use, access issues, and trail building techniques were the focus of a portion of the conference, and S&S Trails was asked to lead a session on safety precautions while doing trail work with a focus on building bridges. After attending the class, conference participants were encouraged to join the Southern Appalachian Back Country Horsemen group to practice new skills while building a 4’x8’ bridge on the facility’s property outside the event arena.
