Today, we’re visiting dirt merchant—no, not that Dirt Merchant.
The Dirt Merchant.
Like, a dude with dirt...inventory.
This particular dirt is free because the merchant’s trying to get rid of it.
You get something different in every scoop, mainly clay, sand, lots of shale, and the
occasional glove or pipe fitting.
And we’re gonna need a lot of it for this week’s project.
Brian and I are flagging what will be Berm Peak’s most ambitious line, and it’s going
right after the flight deck on this empty stretch of trail.
That means it comes right before the Kevin Jump.
So to get this right, we’ll be working backwards.
So this project starts with a landing.
These logs form a cage to keep the dirt contained.
Without them we could still build a landing but we would need a lot more dirt and a lot
more time.
We’re cutting the logs so they lock together—somewhat.
They’ll need a little something extra, so we’re making monster nails out of rebar
and burying them deep in the wood so they don’t hurt anyone.
To get the dirt from the trailer to the landing, we’re using the Gitter and shoveling it
all by hand.
Without Brian’s help this would have been a never ending task.
Each gator load is a half ton and we ended up needing 5 tons or 10 loads to fill our
cage.
With the dirt in place all we needed to do was pack it down.
So I decided to give the Wacker Packer another try.
And this time it only took 5 minutes to turn the Dirt Merchant’s worthless inventory
into a solid riding surface.
Meanwhile, Kevin and Alexander got started fixing up some problem areas on the berm.
The end takes the most abuse so the heavier rockier merchant soil should provide more
armor.
Building it up should also make the Kevin jump less sketchy to actually ride.
This was Alexander’s first time at Berm Peak.
So before we made it too far into the project, he wanted to ride the existing line.
So we put the kicker ramp in front of the landing and considered it a preliminary test.
Alex broke the record for fewest runups to the Kevin jump.
Maybe it was the Whistler trip, or maybe it was all the work Kevin put into the Berm.
In any case, Alexander got to experience the original Kevin Jump and the infamous pucker
plank.
And now, I’m gonna do what many of you have been asking for.
So we can carry more speed off this roll-in, I’m adding a sort of kick plate to the bottom.
I’m sad to see this challenge go, but we need something more functional to make this
line work.
Now to start working on the real feature, the one we need all this speed for.
These 16 foot 2x12s are normally used as joists.
But we’re using them as the sides of our transition.
It’s called a whale tail and although I’ve ridden whale tails before I’ve never built
one.
So Kevin and I used what we learned from past projects to try and get the dimensions right.
Once we had our sides cut, we sealed them with deck stain.
This is super 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 our where to position our whale tail was a group effort.
We only had one chance to get it right and not much of a way to adjust it once assembled.
Once we settled on a permanent location, we got to building the whale tail.
The ground was sloped and off-camber so we’d need to build it in place according to the
terrain.
Days before, I had already cut planks from rough sawn black locust, so we would have
a grippy, weather resistant riding surface.
Last month we built this kicker ramp out of white oak found right here on Berm Peak.
I implied we’d be using it for something and that something comes right before the
whale tail.
After some testing, some adjusting, and more testing, we were getting close to actually
being able to ride this thing.
But there was no way to half jump the gap at the end, so we’d need to practice the
approach a few times and decide as a group that it was ready
to be sent.
There were really no more tests we could do.
It was time to follow through and see if all our flagging and measuring paid off.
The
whale tail felt amazing, and addictive.
Plus the edits Kevin made to the berm had the whole line feeling perfect.
You might be watching this thinking, that whale tail looks ridiculously fun.
And you would be right.
It’s so smooth and so satisfying, you can actually hear just how fun it is.
With the whale tail immediately after the flight deck, we could consider this a re route.
Now, Berm Peak Express ends at the landing and rhodorooter starts right at the roll in.
So our map now looks like this.
And I want to keep building challenging and technical features all the way down this trail.
But we want to get it right.
If there’s one thing I learned during this project it’s that coming up with a solid
plan...actually works!
But there’s one more part of this plan I have yet to execute.
Thanks for riding with me today and I’ll see you next time.