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Wine For The Climb A Huge Success

17 January 2010 5 Comments

Wine1SORBA-Chattanooga officially kicked off its 2010 fund raising campaign with Wine For The Climb, a wine and cheese event held on January 14 at the Outdoor Chattanooga building.

The event drew 150 people raising approximately $9,000 for the trail expansion project, in ticket sales, donations, and a silent auction of a piece of artwork created by artist Celeste Sneed.  This amount represents about 17% of the funds necessary to fully complete the Raccoon Mountain trail expansion.

wine2When complete, the  trail expansion project will add approximately 9 miles of new natural surface single track trail to the trail network.

SORBA-Chattanooga would like to thanks all of our sponsors:  Redwood Creek wines of California, Outdoor Chattanooga, Earth Fare, Diamondback Bicycles, 212 Market Restaurant, Fast Break Athletics, Stone Cup Roasting Co., Artist Celeste Sneed, Sam Silvey Photography, and Sound Force Entertainment.



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5 Comments »

  • Stewart Payne said:

    With all due respect – $6,000 PER MILE! Over a dollar a foot!! Do you realize most of this work can be done with less environmental impact, greater nuance and more technical variety – for FREE? :~)

    # 19 January 2010 at 6:55 pm
  • schaarschmidt (author) said:

    Stewart, we cannot build any additional trial(s) on top of the mountain due to TVA and Fish & Wildlife issues. Therefore, we have to build on the slopes of the mountain if we wish to add any new trail at this site.

    I don’t know if you understand the terrain we are have to build through. We are talking about going all the way down the mountain to the area by the boat ramp and then all the way back up the mountain. (Check out the map located here: http://sorbachattanooga.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/RM-proposed-trail.jpg)

    This will require bench cutting the trial on slopes as steep as 50 degrees in areas. Obviously, this could be done by hand for free, but it would take decades. While the cost per mile is high, it is much less than the $15,000 to $20,000 per mile that a professional trail building company would charge to cut trail on 50 degree slopes.

    # 20 January 2010 at 2:08 am
  • Erik said:

    Food for volunteers=Not Free

    Wood for bridges=Not Free

    Tools to for volunteers to use=Not Free

    Required Biological Survey=Not Free

    Trailhead Kiosks=Not Free

    Trail Sinage=Not Free

    All of these, with their respective quantities, add up to a great deal of money. Now what about the equipment required to construct the actual trail, is that free too? Yes, this work can be done by volunteers for free with a shovel and pick, but I challenge you to build a 4+ foot high bench cut for ten feet by hand, let alone several miles(with numerous switchbacks)using volunteer labor on weekends. The reality is we can either raise money to build this trail in 2010, or we can work the same volunteers that show up to every trail work day to death, and get the trail completed sometime in 2020.

    # 24 January 2010 at 11:40 am
  • O' Tim said:

    Congratulations on a successful fundraiser, SORBA ! I hope to make it out to some trail work days this coming year (free of charge, as always).

    # 3 February 2010 at 3:34 pm
  • Yogaguy said:

    Agreed. Congrats on the fundraiser and definitely agree on the who cost of building a good trail. I’d really like to be able to ride the trail before I’m using a walker to get around and telling my grandchildren stories of mountain biking back in the day (btw I’m 35 with no children yet). Volunteers are critical to success but there’s only so much that can be done without the proper equipment to build a trail on the side of a mountain. Can’t wait til the trail is inaugurated! Thanks for all the great work maintaining and improving the trail networks guys. Raccoon already has some of the greatest variety of terrain in the SE as it is. A huge climb/descent like the proposed trail will only add to the great variety on the trail system.

    # 15 February 2010 at 1:24 pm