Dead Man’s Hollow

Category

Client

Allegheny Land Trust (ALT)

Goal

Complete trail construction and maintenance outlined in a master trail plan created by Pashek Associates, a landscape architecture firm with extensive knowledge and experience in trail design.

Work Completed

Operating as the MWCDC’s Emerald Trail Corps, we were able to follow the master trail plan created by Pashek Associates to build close to 1.25 miles of new trail across the rolling hillsides that border the Youghiogheny River. We were also able to repair two bridges and implement several trail reroutes and rebuilds. These improvements brought the existing trails up to the standard of the new trails and created a succinct loop. In addition, we were able to advise ALT on how to use volunteers to help complete some of the master trail plan.

During this project, one of our major challenges was closing off several old trails, some of which were created by neighbors to shortcut the existing trail loop. We were able to contain most of these issues by creatively restructuring the user experience with downed trees and other natural materials.

Outcome

Before we were done with the three week project, we had begun to meet several enthusiastic trail users from dog walkers to mountain bikers, all of whom were eager to see our finished product and to use what we had recently completed.

Landforce will be working with ALT at Dead Man’s Hollow again in 2016 to further expand the trail system based on their master trail plan.