Posted on 01/23/2008 9:52:22 AM PST by george76
Mountain bikers worry proposal could kill ‘epic ride’.
Many of the area's skilled mountain bikers are concerned about a proposal that would ban them from some of their most-prized local trails, including a segment of the Colorado Trail.
The proposal is part of a draft plan by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to guide management of 2.4 million acres of public lands in Southwest Colorado.
The plan recommends classifying 55,000 acres as new wilderness, including 51,000 acres west of Hermosa Creek.
Congress is ultimately responsible for establishing wilderness areas, which cannot be used by motorized vehicles or mountain bikes.
"There's 500,000 ways to preserve it other than by banning bicyclists," mountain biker Gardner Catsman said.
The Colorado Trail, a 500-mile route from outside Denver to Durango, is "a premier, world-class, long-distance" trail for mountain bikers, according to the trail's Web site, with the strenuous 75-mile segment from Molas Pass to Durango being especially revered among the sport's elite.
Severing it, Catsman said, would eliminate the area's "only classic, epic ride."
(Excerpt) Read more at durangoherald.com ...
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This is nuts! Public lands should be for recreation. I can understand keeping motorized vehicles out of some areas but not mountain bikes.
” A favorite tool used by these well-funded organizations is the Wilderness Act of 1964. This law was enacted originally to preserve 9 million acres of wilderness so “future generations could see what their forefathers had to conquer.”
Now, there are 702 officially designated Wilderness Areas, covering 107.4 million acres. “
I grew up in this area. The portion of trail they are talking about is really spectacular. I’m not a mountain biker, but I used to hike and hunt in that area. The Hermosa Cliffs north of Durango are beautiful and are featured in many postcards of the area. Truly a magnificent ride/hike. It would be a shame if idiot bureaucrats mucked it all up for everyone (but why should we expect anything different?).
Banning bicycles. Incredible.
A non-polluting device that moves tourists quickly from bathroom
to bathroom.
Thus lowering the pollution load they’ll leave on the wilderness by
needing to stop and relieve themselves while hiking down the same path.
Public means you are not allowed except by permission.
Well, so many roads have been closed to National Parks, so you can’t drive into them any more. Now the bureacrats at the USDA want to up the ante, and the precedent has been set. What’s to stop them? Bikers?
Unfortunately you are correct, and more so as time passes.
Is horseback riding allowed in that area? Just curious.
But that's what bureaucrats do - day after day after day. And guess who gets to pay for it?
Carolyn
Mountain bikers have been fighting for places to ride ever since the first mountain bikes were created. Hikers and horse back riders have been unwilling to share trails with them from the start.
They ride through soft mud leaving deep ruts that remain all year when the soil hardens.
It is as far as I know. We moved from the area about 10 years ago, so things might have changed. Most horseback riders would likely avoid the really popular mountain bike trails, though, just to avoid collisions. Sometimes those bikers really come flying down the trail (not always, but in some certain spots) and in some places, there may not be a lot of room with a horse to get off the trail in a hurry.
This is simply one group attempting to grab exclusive use of public lands for their activities. The enviro-jihadists are on the march or should I say hike. In Colorado they have banned 4-wheeling in many formally popular places, now bikes. These Sierra Club type hikers are spoiled brats that don’t know how to share. BLM and national forest lands are to be multi-use, sometimes that includes mining, ranching, recreation, hunting, biking, motor-sports, climbing, timber harvesting and even hiking. If they are to be exclusively used by any one interest then the land is essentially as if it were private. In that case the land should be sold to the highest bidder - in the mean time I suggest that the Sierra Club fork over the equivalent property tax for all the public land they think they own (a couple of billion dollars would come close).
Yeah, and the kayakers hate the trout fishermen.
As far as I am concerned there should be no such thing as public land. Not even public easements. 1% of Alaska is in private ownership, which is what drew my attention to this abuse of ownership.
Things have really changed around the Durango area since I grew up there and I know I could never live there again, but the natural beauty of the country in that part of Colorado is spectacular. It's part of what keeps drawing people there. That and the access to so many outdoor activities from one central location (hiking, biking, skiing, fishing, rafting, hunting, etc.)
Carolyn
Qft. I used to mountain bike back around 1990-95. Horses on the trail would sometimes freak out at a moving bike. And the rider would look at us like it was somehow our fault that their animal was skittish.
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