Berm Peak’s Trailhead gets a huge upgrade!

The flight deck. It was one of the first things we built here at Berm Peak, and possibly one of the most important. It serves as the starting point for all of our downhill trails, so we deliberately built it at the highest point on the property. So, it seems like a strange place to store all of our wood and supplies. Especially since we recently blocked alligator access with this landing. Carrying anything to or from the flight deck is an exhausting trek, and once you get there it's kind of a disaster. So today we will build the forest road that should have existed from the beginning and rebuild the lower part of the flight deck to make it more functional for storing wood.

Right now our map looks like this. Our new trail will begin at Berm Peak Express and cross the Airbag Trail, leading directly to the flight deck for easy transportation of supplies, like these heavy oak planks I've been milling here. To build it wide enough for the alligator, we'll have to keep testing it as we go. I found a route where we only need to remove two bushes. The rest will just need pruning and of course we also have a lot of dead wood and brush to clear out. But this will be a very complicated path. I don't want to cut more than necessary so that as we go along, the alligator can be used as a yardstick to measure width and height.

After cutting and clearing for a couple of hours, I finally got to those two bushes and was left with a couple of stumps. As night fell, I arrived at the flight deck. And it was clear that this path would make things much easier. But there was still a lot of work to be done under the flight deck. So the next morning I went back to work. First, I very lightly raked the trail to clean things up. As the alligator tracks become worn, we may need to place gravel or mulch on this trail to prevent it from becoming dirty.

But for now this will hold up fine. Once the trail was finished, I could get to work on the mess below the flight deck. The existing wood shelves were an afterthought. They could have become more resilient and organized. So I started by emptying the contents of the flight deck and giving it a good look. I had a decent idea of ​​what to build, but I would need 2x4s which I didn't have. But with the addition of the new service road, I was able to load larger planks onto the gator and transport them to the shop where we could cut them to size.

While I was there, I also turned some scraps into spikes, like the ones we used to anchor the wooden

berm

in place. It would be easy to buy treated stallions in the store, but with the whole world in lockdown, we need to use what we have here at Berm Peak to make it happen. After making those cuts, it was great to be able to transport it all in one go, right to the job site. The stakes fit perfectly behind the gathered board. And with our freshly cut studs ready to go, you could start building the new lumber rack.

The design was not complicated at all. Only three posts that go from the beams to the ground. With these posts in place, you could build several racks for different sized planks and add more racks in the future if needed. With the wood racks completed, I was able to take some of the larger boards I had been milling, load them onto the gator, and take them to the flight deck for storage. The flight deck was always supposed to be the start of the Berm Peak trail, but only now does it really feel like it. There is parking, everything is organized and now there is even a bank.

And with the addition of our new logging road, there's only one way to properly name it. After running any of the Berm Peak trails, we usually have to go back up. But now we can return to the top. I know it's only 25 feet of elevation gain, but it would be rude not to do it at least once. I mean, backyard laps might be the best #stayathome option. And while we're not seriously using this as a shuttle trail, I think we should call it a flywheel instead of something boring like BP3. With the addition of our new logging road, Berm Peak is just a little more functional, and while this wasn't something as exciting as a jump or a skinny, it was something I'd been planning to do for a long time, and what better. time to do that now.

If you'd like to see more about how we've been milling these planks, subscribe to our second channel for a video this weekend on this Alaskan mill. Thanks for traveling with me today and we'll see you next time.