Forsyth County Parks and Recreation’s Trail Management Institute along with corporate sponsor Vermeer SE offered a 2 day Advance Trail Building class on Sept 27th & 28th at Haw Creek Park.

The class was led by IMBA Trail Specialist Stephen Mullins.

Class participant were hands on for over 14hrs with several pieces of mechanized equipment ranging from mini skid steers like the Ditch Witch Sk500 to Vermeer’s S800TX, S650TX. Several attachments were brought in to demo like the 4 and 6 way blades, tillers and tree grapplers. There was also Yanmar’s mini excavator ViO17.

This two-day training was designed to enhance the knowledge of a trail crew volunteer, trail coordinator or land manager who was interested in mechanized and advance trail building techniques. Topics included: machine overview, preventive maintenance schedule and field repairs demo, basic concepts of mechanized trail work, “Working in Pairs”, Building Technical Trail Features: bridges, jumps, climbing turn, switch berms and flow trails.

Projects completed by the participants: 400ft of new flow trail, 150 feet of new pump track installed.