Projects – Page 2 – Nature Trails

Durham Central Park Creek Trail

Client: Durham Central Park 501(c)3 Location: Durham, NC Durham Central Park non-profit reached out to us with two issues in regards to an area of their beautiful park. First, users frequently like to explore a creek that runs through the park, but this area was overgrown with invasive species, unsafe due to being the site of an old landfill, and was in an urban stormwater flood area. Second, they wanted to expand their public sculpture collection, but were limited in useable space. Nature Trails solved both issues by designing a trail system that switchbacked down to the creek sustainably and was hardened with larger aggregate to mitigate migration during flood events. We imported over 60 tons of native granite boulders to line the creek bank and built a boulder retaining wall to level a site for a new troll sculpture by artist, Michael Waller. Now park users have a beautiful, safe access trail to the creek that can endure flood waters during storm events....

Durham County Trail Rehabilitation

Client: Durham County Open Space Location: Durham, NC Durham County has numerous trails occupying low-lying floodplain areas. While very popular, the location of these trails presents challenges due to frequent flooding which leaves the tread surface mucky and potentially with standing water for extended durations where heavy foot traffic has created ruts. In addition, there was a creek crossing across an ephemeral oxbow that was orginally built with multiple 18" culverts and topped with loose #57 stone. Due to the culverts being undersized, they would clog fairly quickly and cause flood waters to breach over the crossing and wipe out the trail. Durham County contacted us about solving both of these problems. First, we removed the old culverts and installed a custom 10ft x 10ft aluminum box culvert that allows for substantially more water flow, reduces the likelyhood of clogging, and is easier to maintain in the event of storm debris buildup. Next, we rehabilitated and armored the floodplain trail to prevent further erosion....

Little Rock NICA Trail – Coachwhip

Client: Jagged Axe Trails / Arkansas Parks & Recreation Foundation Location: Pinnacle Mountain State Park - Little Rock, AR We partnered with our friends at Jagged Axe Trail Designs during the construction / re-imagination of Pinnacle Mountain State Park trails in partnership with the Arkansas Parks & Recreation Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation to construct a major portion of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association (NICA) race loop for the park. The native soil and terrain was extremely rock laden and our task was to create a beginner friendly 'green' trail for riders of all skill levels. This task was very challenging given the extensive stone and soil conditions, but we persevered and delivered what we feel is one of the best NICA trails in the county. The trail provides smooth flowing terrain that weaves the native landscape and provides optional A/B challenge features that provide a 'shortcut' to encourage riders to safely build skills to utilize these routes as a faster line. ...

San Jose, Costa Rica Bike Park

Client: Rodrigo V. Location: San Jose, Costa Rica Rodrigo's family owns a 200 acre, aging dairy farm outside San Jose. With dairy importing growing, the family realized the need to diversify income and explore additional revenue streams for their land. With multiple family members that enjoy mountain biking, they contacted Nature Trails and met with us in North Carolina to discuss their needs. In addition, with most local bike trails being extremely difficult, Rodrigo set a goal of designing and developing a family friendly bike park with options for young children and beginners all the way up to advanced professionals. This park will be the first of it's kind in Costa Rica to deliver such a broad range of trail variety. We soon became concept development of a multi-phase project to develop trails along side the dairy operations with minimal impact while slowly re-allocating land as the revenue shifts over time. In addition to our design work, Nature Trails worked closely with local...

Corporate Walking Trails

Client: Diliweg Companies Location: Durham, NC Diliweg companies contacted us about repairs trails that were build incorrectly by a landscaping company. Due to the lack of experience, the landscaping company that attempted to install their trails routed the paths poorly and cause severe erosion of the surface materials. In addition, the trails were routed across a low lying field with significant water flow and as a result, the poor trail design created a dam that turned the field into a marsh that never dried. Our solution was to change trail alignments where possible, install timber steps where needed, and install substantial subsurface French drain systems throughout the field portion to redirect the water underground. Check out the before, during, and after photos to see the progress!...

Carrboro, NC Pump Tracks

Client: Brightview Landscaping / Town of Carrboro, North Carolina Location: Carrboro, NC The Town of Carrboro designed an extensive overhaul and update to their Martin Luther King Jr. park in the Spring of 2019. Brightview Landscaping was selected as a subcontractor to complete the landscaping and stormwater elements of the park. Due to our extensive experience, Brightview brought in Nature Trails to design and build two pump tracks in the park to cater to beginner and intermediate riders. In addition, we constructed several playground elements out of site harvested trees to repurpose them as natural elements within the park....

Bristol, Tennessee ATV Trail

Client: Long Cane Trails Location: Bristol, TN Long Cane Trails was hired to construct 3+ miles of 4-wheeler trails on private property in Bristol, TN. Upon encountering extra steep side slope with extensive subsurface rock, Long Cane hired us to complete the trail using some of our larger equipment and hydraulic breaker. The steep slopes and rock required cuts up to 12 feet deep in solid stone to form a 60 inch wide tread suitable for ATV's to safely navigate. This project required extreme patience, caution, and precision to be built without the use of blasting or hydraulic fracturing methods. Total duration of construction through the rock cliffs was approximately 5 weeks to complete 0.5 miles....

Private Mountain Bike Skills Trail

Client: Natalie L. Location: Raleigh, NC1 This private bicycle skills trail was created for MTB skills instructor with a passion for riding, but also teaching others! This trail is approximately 1,600 linear feet in length on 2.5 acres. As part of the design, the client specified wanting progressive drops, rollers, jumps, berms, skinnies, ledges, and a rock garden. With semi flat terrain, we had to construct an elevated mound for the entrance of the trail to create a double drop zone with a ledgy downhill bypass line. Next, the trail progresses from small berms, to small uniform rollers before diving into a larger berm and hitting several larger table tops and a rollable hip jump. After the jump section, the trail provides a bypass shortcut back to the top or descends further down the hill with a custom cedar slab A-frame bridge, skinny, and up-down ledges. The climb back up as a log pile roll, rock garden, cedar skinny bridge, and a unique...

Oskar Blues REEB Ranch Bike Park – Beginner Dirt Jumps

Client: Oskar Blues REEB Ranch Location: Hendersonville, NC The REEB Ranch is an unique event venue owned by Dale Katechis, the founder of Oskar Blues and REEB Cycles. The ranch caters to a wide variety of events, but notably, it has a dedicated bike park complete with dual slalom, dirt jumps, pump track, skinnies, and more! Despite all of these cool options, Nature Trails was contracted to build a beginner / intermediate dirt jump section that bridged the skills gap between the pump track obstacles and the large jump lines so that riders had more opportunity for skill progression. We accomplished this by installing a line of progressive tabletops that start around 3ft tall and 6ft long and increase in size gradually up to about 4ft tall and 8ft long without the need for pedaling along the way. In addition, we built two extra small tabletops that are stand alone to provide riders new to jumping the opportunity to catch air without having...

Black Mountain / Avery Creek / Buckwheat Knob – Pisgah Trail Rehab

Client: Pisgah Area SORBA Location: Brevard, NC Pisgah Area SORBA is an extremely active trail advocacy organization overseeing the Pisgah Ranger District and surrounding areas. Through their efforts, they have been awarded several Recreational Trail Program (RTP) grants for rehabilitation, reroute, and new construction of multi-use trails in the Pisgah National Forest. Nature Trails was selected as the contractor to perform rehabilitation on the a group of trails radiating from a central intersection with Club Gap. Our scope of work required us to create positive drainage and sustainable tread surface on legacy, fall line logging trails often in excess of 20% grades that were never designed for this application. Our work was restricted to using the existing trail prism which meant that we had to develop creative solutions for drainage without realigning the trail to reduce grades. In addition, we had to work closely with the US Forest Service to prevent conflict with numerous Native American archeological sites that exist along the trails. As...