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Basic ATX Geology Trail Conditions


MrTheCatLady
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All,

This has been the most annoying fall/winter season since I have been into MTB.  The ground is staying very wet for what seems like inordinate amounts of time.  While riding my road bike 🙂 I have been thinking about the situation and have realized I have never paid that much attention to how wet the ground is...my whole life.  So what has been happening over the last few months has been bewildering to me.  Why is the ground so wet?

Is it the fact that we had apocalyptic rain in October 2018? Is the ground still saturated from that?  Is the water table super-high or something?  I mean, we've had rain since then, of course - has it been "just enough" to keep the ground wet?  Did the apocalyptic rain have any long term effect?  It's not like we haven't had sunny and/or windy days too; they just don't seem to be doing the trick.  Have we all bought too many new bikes recently?

Just curious.  Sorry if this question has an obvious answer.

-cls

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7.96in in September vs 2.99in average, double the average October precipitation (7.74in vs 3.9in), a bit under average for November (1.73in vs. 2.95in), more than double the precipitation in December (5.84in vs 2.4in), already 0.4inch above the January average (2.58in so far vs 2.2in average) with 12 more days to go.

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14 hours ago, throet said:

Remember that from 2008-2015 Central Texas was in the grips of one of the worst droughts in history. I can remember many times during those years begging and praying for rain. Now, I'm begging and praying for a drought! 

Remember how you hated all that moon dust? Sliding out on turns, taking a shower after a ride and your tub is brown from the coating of dust that stuck to you sweaty legs, that same coating that got on everything on your bike, and group rides where you inhaled so much dust that you could spit brown?  Remember? Yeah, me neither!

About geology; I was standing on the Escarpment bridge over Slaughter Creek after a big rain watching the flooding below. A man came up and commented about the geology of the soil upstream from us. He was talking about the area where DiscGo DiscGo is. I forgot what he called the rock and soil combination, but he explained that it was like a sponge, and that it holds lots of water. That water would continue to leach out for a long while after the flooding subsided.

I think our SATN recovers faster than your stuff in Yankee land north of the river does. It seems we are always ready to go sooner than Walnut or Brushy is.

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Most our trails are in a transition zones so the soil types are mixed. But I believe the vast majority of the soil we do have is Hoston Black which is black gumbo . It has a high clay content and poor drainage.


Gumbo clay...now there’s a coonass term! Many a rubber boot has been lost in that crap!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I’m a geologist and I can really nerd this shit up but I’ll keep it rather simple. 

This area is pratically 100% limestone, which is the most legitimate natural filter system the world has ever known. Water drains through this shit like it’s nobodys business. Yes, there’s some surface soil around, especially in the lower lying areas, but just a foot or two (at most) below that is....you guessed it, Limestone! At the end of the day this area has gotten so much water that even the highly permeable and extremely porus limestone that fills our lives with joy, trails with dry conditions, and bodies with clean water are overwhelmed. Lump that in with an obscene amount of cloudy days blocking the sun from drying things out, and just slowing the whole process down, this is where we end up. 

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30 minutes ago, AntonioGG said:

This is bad...but I guess what's to do with all the rain but to pun?  (I don't have one)

Still, you have laid the bedrock to explain the foundation beneath our usurping the mantle of the original thread topic, just the same.

Any appreciator of puns has gotta lava the way it has turned out. Go fissure.

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  • Albert changed the title to Basic ATX Geology Trail Conditions

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