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These statements are all true. They have been for 20+ years. While I do not want to write a small book on the trail I will, however, explain the benefits of having the Berryman Loop within 120 miles of your front door. The Berryman Trail is a loop of singletrack in the Mark Twain National Forest that serves hikers, equestrians and within the last 30 years, mountain bikers. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corp – CCC for short – which was instituted shortly after the Great Depression.

Lisa and I (Matt) decided to check out the Brown County Break Down after riding there multiple times and reading about the event. So on a whim we signed up and checked it out. Here’s a quick pictorial of the event. There aren’t many photos because the trails are too fun to slow down and snap pics…

Get ready for the annual GORC Volunteer Appreciation party on October 30th! This year it will be held at Cliff Cave park following a much-needed workday. Cliff Cave offers a wealth of geological curiosities and oddities throughout the park that can be explored while on your mountain bike. Sinkholes, caves, bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, haunted demon hollows and car wreckage.

We’re going to do some maintenance work on the Eagle Valley singletrack, and try to complete one of the two switchbacks on the DeClue extension. Don’t know where the singletrack is on Eagle Valley? Come and help out this Saturday, and you can find out. If we can get the trail in good enough shape this fall, we can start working on a connector from the current end of the DeClue singletrack at Scenic Loop Rd.

Big Jim Mac and I seized a weekday opportunity to beat the crowds on the OT Curtois section earlier this week. The impromptu “plan” was to explore south from Berryman base camp down to Hazel Creek camp (if possible) for an out n’ back trip of about 26 or 27 miles…

Look out for some great racing on some of the best backcountry Missouri trails with 200+ of your racing friends. The race is on Saturday so you can party down through the night, stumbling back to your campsite at the ever-so-friendly Bass River Resort.

With last year’s trail vandalism at the Chubb and now with the painful extraction of some monkeyheads at Greensfelder we at GORC felt it was high time to post the St. Louis County Parks Trail Hotline – 314-615-8911. Now we can all help police our favorite trails.

Another busy Spring. Our trail mileage was down due to the number of workdays that had to be devoted to maintenance. Next time you’re out in marginal conditions trying to decide whether or not to ride, please remember that these maintenance days take away from building new trail. Here’s a brief summary which lists the trail name, what type of work was done, the number of workdays, and the mileage of the sections worked on:

Last year we received a $500 grant from Clif Bar to purchase a Stihl Yard Boss. I’d seen Glenn using it at workdays at Lost Valley, Creve Coeur and Greensfelder, but those were all on relatively small sections. Here, we took it out to the Dogwood trail, and used it to remove a large berm that was causing water to be channeled straight down the trail.

Last year, after one of our members came down with erlichiosis from an encounter with some ticks on the Ozark Trail, I decided to find out some more information about ticks and the consequences of their bites. Luckily for us, we have a tick expert right here in Missouri, who also happens to be a mountain biker- Dr. Greg Cummins, who is a member