Bob's Supremacy log pile

Bob's Supremacy - top of the hill log pile - August 2011 Burchfield Park, Holt, Michigan, USA

Two trees were blown down past the bottom of the short technical hill that is at the start of Bob's Supremacy. Somebody on the forum had a great idea, to use them to build a log pile. I added the log pile at the top of the hill, just off to the left of the main trail. It's got a bit of a steep drop back into the trail, which then feeds into the technical (but very short) downhill, adding even more character to it.

The pile was stabilized using a couple of techniques. Forks in the logs were used to keep them from rolling, one fork was set into a small tree. The other technique was to use a 3-inch branch as a stabilizing cross-member, sinking it into slots and notches carved in the logs. The end of the stabilizer, away from the log pile, was set into a notch in an anchor log, which was braced against two small trees. Hopefully this will hold together for a long time, but that remains to be seen. Update - a week later I inspected it and it hadn't moved at all. It was still very stable. I rode it 10 times for testing, and it was perfect each time.
The view from the side of the pile. At the moment at least, this is very solid wood, no rot at all. Hopefully it will last a long time.
The view from the end of the pile. The suggested track was shown by removing the bark on some of the logs with the chainsaw.
I used one of the discard pieces as a shim and jammed it into the notch to make it so that the crossbrace doesn't move.
You can't see it from this picture, but the crossbrace has a "tongue" that goes underneath the anchor log. This is very stable, I can't budge it by grabbing the crossbrace and trying to move it back and forth.
When the bike touches down at the end, there is about one or two inches of chain ring clearance. Hopefully this is true for most, if not all, bikes.
Here's a test ride, complete with chainsaw helmet, earmuffs and facemask! I apologize for the lousy video resolution, for some reason it was recorded tiny and I've had to scale it up.