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Building and Riding the Backyard Whale Tail

Mar 29, 2020
Today we are going to visit a dirt dealer; No, not that dirt merchant. The Dirt Merchant. Like a guy with dirt...inventory. This particular dirt is free because the dealer is trying to get rid of it. You get something different with each scoop, mostly clay, sand, lots of shale, and occasionally a glove or pipe fitting. And we'll need a lot of it for this week's project. Brian and I are marking what will be the most ambitious line on Berm Peak, and it will go just after the flight deck on this empty stretch of trail. That means it comes right before Kevin Jump.
building and riding the backyard whale tail
So to get it right, we'll work backwards. So this project begins with a landing. These logs form a cage to keep dirt contained. Without them we could still build a landing, but we would need a lot more land and a lot more time. We're cutting the logs together, something like that. They'll need something extra, so we're going to make monster nails out of rebar and bury them deep into the wood so they don't hurt anyone. To get the dirt from the trailer to the landing, we used the Gitter and shoveled everything by hand. Without Brian's help, this would have been a never-ending task.
building and riding the backyard whale tail

More Interesting Facts About,

building and riding the backyard whale tail...

Each load of alligators weighs half a ton and we ended up needing 5 tons or 10 loads to fill our cage. Once the dirt was in place, all we had to do was pack it away. So I decided to give the Wacker Packer another chance. And this time it only took 5 minutes to turn the Dirt Merchant's useless inventory into a solid

riding

surface. Meanwhile, Kevin and Alexander began fixing some problem areas on the berm. The end requires the most abuse, so the heavier, rockier commercial soil should provide the most armor. Developing it should also make Kevin jump less to ride.
building and riding the backyard whale tail
This was Alexander's first time on Berm Peak. So before getting too far into the project, he wanted to follow the existing line. So we put the back ramp in front of the landing and considered it a preliminary test. Alex broke the record for fewest runs until Kevin's jump. Maybe it was the trip to Whistler, or maybe it was all the work Kevin did in Berm. In any case, Alexander was able to experience the original Kevin Jump and the infamous pucker board. And now I'm going to do what many of you have been asking for. So we can get more speed out of this roll-in, I'm adding some sort of skid plate to the bottom.
building and riding the backyard whale tail
I'm sad to see this challenge go away, but we need something more functional to make this line work. Now let's start working on the real function, for which we need all this speed. These 16 foot 2x12s are typically used as joists. But we are using them as sides of our transition. It's called a

whale

tail

, and although I've built

whale

tail

s before, I've never built one. So Kevin and I used what we learned from previous projects to try to get the dimensions right. Once we had the sides cut, we sealed them with deck stain. This is very rare on Berm Peak, but without the sealer this wood will rot.
And using pressure-treated wood just wouldn't be right because... well, it's a whale. Figuring out where to place our whale tail was a group effort. We only had one chance to get it right and there wasn't much way to adjust it once it was assembled. Once we decided on a permanent location, we began

building

the whale tail. The terrain was sloping and off-camber, so we would have to build it on site based on the terrain. Days before I had already cut black acacia boards, to have a grippy and weather-resistant driving surface. Last month we built this white oak ramp found here on Berm Peak.
I hinted that we would use it for something and that something comes right before the whale tail. After some testing, some tweaking, and more testing, we were getting closer to being able to handle this. But in the end there was no way to jump half the gap, so we would have to practice the approach several times and decide as a group that it was ready to be sent. There really was no more testing we could do. It was time to move on and see if all our signs and measurements were worth it. The whale tail felt amazing and addictive.
Plus, the edits Kevin made on the berm made the entire line feel perfect. You might be watching this thinking, that whale tail looks ridiculously fun. And you would be well. It's so smooth and so satisfying that you can hear how much fun it is. With the whale tail immediately after the flight deck, we could consider this a new route. Now, Berm Peak Express ends at the landing and rhodorooter begins right at the entrance location. So our map now looks like this. And I want to continue

building

technical and challenging features along this path. But we want to do it well.
If there's one thing I learned during this project, it's that coming up with a solid plan...it really works! But there is one more part of this plan that I have yet to execute. Thanks for traveling with me today and we'll see you next time.

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