Newsletter, February 1998
By Michael Kelley
Reprinted with permission from the Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay. In January, I had the great pleasure of attending the First International Trails and Greenways Conference in San Diego. It was sponsored by the Rails-To-Trails Conservancy (RTC). Nearly 700 people attended to share ideas, find solutions to common problems, and get some inspiration to boot.The goal was to make trails and greenways an essential part of public policy by making the connection between trails and transportation, recreation, urban policy, public health, economic development, biodiversity, habitat protection, stormwater management, sustainability, livable communities, rural policy, land use planning and more. It was a mouthful, but we had 3 full days to chew on it. The annual California Trails Conference was on Wednesday, and took an all-day look at the California Trail Plan, which had not been updated since it was enacted in 1978. Some 185 attendees grappled with their vision of the trail system in the year 2010.
The International RTC Conference began on Thursday. It was far too big to be able to report on more than one session, given the space limitations imposed your Editor. The highlight for me turned out to be "Trails, Environmental Degradation, User Conflict-A Case for a Team Process." I almost didnıt go. Been there, done that... But my old pal Ken Wells was one of the presenters, and I wanted to stand up for him. Tom Ward of California State Parks moderated, and State Park Ecologist Marla Hastings was the other panelist.. The deal was this: one of our favorite parks in the region, Annadel State Park, had been going to the dogs. Years ago, it was successful. There were great single track opportunities, and a regime that was friendly to multi use. For a while anarchy prevailed, there was a pollution of social trails, and the main attraction came to be a park where all users could go where they wanted to. It was being loved to death.
Along came Marla Hastings, who was responsible for the ecology of some 30,000 acres in the region. She was appalled at the degradation, and set out to fix it. This could have been a recipe for disaster, given the experience of other parks where "impact" so often became synonymous with "closure." Fortunately, this was not Marla's approach. She and her pals formed the "A Team", consisting of 11 people, 5 of whom represented muscle powered users. Among them was Ken Wells, activist extraordinaire since the early days of ROMP. The A Team undertook a unprecedented group process. It devoted a lot of time to figuring things out, beginning work in August of 1995, and only releasing the final Plan last Spring. From the beginning, the players set aside pre-conceptions and assumptions, and listened to one another. They met frequently, did trail projects, and had "awareness" and "recognition" days. They came to have high regard and trust for one another. The first task was to formulate a Team issue statement, beginning by quantifying trails and use. They found that most users were men, aged 26-45, 60% were on mountain bikes, 4% were equestrians, and the rest hikers. They averaged 50 visits per year, and generally preferred steep, rocky, and narrow trail opportunities.
The A Team found that the root causes of the literally dozens of problems were lack of enforcement, education, revenue and staff, maintenance, and volunteers. These root causes were not aimed at any particular uses. This first stage was the most difficult, as the participants learned to develop trust. In addition to the root causes, the A Team reached consensus on several key ideas. There had to be a basic plan for narrow shared trails that provided an experience that was "intimate with the earth." (I presume trail rash was not a necessary element of this.) There had to be a diversity of trail opportunities, and if there were valid opportunities for legal narrow gauge trails, it would be possible to eliminate the illegal ones.
The A Team agreed that the problems had not been caused by users, but instead were caused by the original trail and road design, (or, more accurately, a lack of design,) and that these were problems that could be fixed by building new trails, repairing others, and closing some to return them to nature. They realized that reducing the width of trails caused a significant reduction in environmental impact as well as better trail experiences for all usersclearly a win-win situation. Future plans include removing several fire roads, and converting them to multiple use paths.
The A Team agreed that all trails in the park should be multi-use, with the only exceptions in a few environmentally sensitive areas. This has become the official policy.
After the plan was completed, the press was invited to review the product, and wonderful publicity resulted. There has been nearly 100% compliance with trail closures, with no reported negative incidents on the new multi use single track trails. All the trails that were worked on are in great condition, and the new single tracks show no damage, even after the recent rains. These results were outstanding, particularly given the net decrease in the number of trails. There still remain the problems of maintaining trails and keeping an eye on things over time, with only two staff members. To solve this, the A Team is looking into a use permit project to provide the extra funds for maintenance and staff. (Fee-based recreation is a complicated topic, which will be the subject of a full article in the future.) The A Team is also continuing to act as an advisory committee for the Park, and assisting with volunteer patrols, (combined horse and bike "Mounted Assistance Units,") whole access, and trail design, repair, and construction.
As an added benefit, that should appeal to her bosses in Sacramento, Marla was able to parlay the A Team plan into a pile of loot. The Plan provided the documentation for successful grant requests exceeding $200,000 to reduce the size of existing fire roads into paths.
So how was Annadel able to get so many shared use trails, when so many other jurisdictions were unsuccessful? The team process was critical. The land managers recognized their responsibility to preserve, and at same time meet the needs of their constituency. They believed they were public servants, and always had to balance competing concerns. They bought into the project in a big way, were invested with a sense of ownership, and took great care to make it work. The biggest contribution, once barriers of mistrust were removed, was awareness that all users wanted essentially the same trail experiences. Above all, the A Team took a great deal of time to meet together and witness a multitude of diverse opinions coalesce into a few fixable problems as trust built. It was clearly worth the effort, and they all appear to be getting on like the figures on the cover of Watchtower Magazine.
May 9th-10th is the 2nd annual Pedal Paddle event held near Nevada City. The first day is classified as hard-core and involves separate events for mountain bikers and kayakers. The South Yuba mountain metric is an endurance ride which features two world class mountain bike loops. Riders will sample some of the fine single-track trails including: Round Mountain, Malakoff Rim Trail and the Pioneer Trail. These loops have excellent sections of diversity with rugged and smooth single track, jeep roads, and mining trails. Aid stations and gourmet lunch stops will help keep riders tantalized and fueled. The route splits at Missouri Bar where riders can choose the shorter route back to camp via the South Yuba Trail or the upstream grade though the town of Washington to the Pioneer Trail. The longer loop is 50 miles, the shorter loop is 35 miles.
The Kayak portion of the day is a solid class V kayak race. The run is considered by most boaters to be harder than other Class V Classics. The race begins at high noon at the Jones Bar Gage, one mile below the Hwy 49 bridge. From Jones Bar it is 6.5 miles down to the finish at the covered bridge.
On the second day is the relay, it starts with a 7 mile, mainly descent, down forested switchbacks to the South Yuba River. At Edwards Crossing bikers will tag their kayak partners or change into their boating gear for the down river leg of the race. This run has four to six class IV rapids.
Saturday night will be a celebration of the river at Camp Celio on Lake Vera. The local band, Mother Wheel will perform. This event is put on by the South Yuba Citizens League (SYRCL), a community based, educational, non-profit organization committed to the protection and preservation of the Yuba River watershed and itıs ecosystems.
Call Bruce Herring for more information: (530) 265-5961
©1997 Bicycle Trails Council of Marin
Old Spokes
Marin County Open Space had asked that the BTC cover the cost of hiring a sheriff to patrol the Annual Thanksgiving Day ride. Even though the ride was, in all respects, cancelled and re-routed, and the Sheriffs were rather lonely as they sat a top of Pine Mountain waiting for the masses that never arrived; the bill came in last week $265 and the BTC has paid the tab.
Our February meeting proved to be a grand success. Joe Breeze gave an entertaining slide show, and a good crowd filled the upstairs of the Flatiron Sports Bar at 2nd & B St. in San Rafael. The free hors d'oeuvres were flowing and the crowds were mingling. I finally got a good friend, who lives in Petaluma, to join the BTC (only after a year and a half of less than subtle encouragement on my part). Though the event was lots of fun, our new membership fees from the evening did not quite cover the cost of the free hors d'oeuvres. (We got 5 new members). Still, we considered the event a success, because it brought out current members that want to get more involved. We got lots of names and numbers of people to call to help with our informational outposts, trail work, the web page, and even one who was interested in the newsletter.
Our new venue has easy access off Hwy 101. Those commuting home on the first Wednesday of any month, stop on by, have a beer, and check out a meeting. We will try to hold a larger, more 'exciting' meeting once a quarter, and we encourage you to come and bring those friends you ride with that still aren't BTC members. I know there is a large contingent of mountain bikers out there that grew up in Marin, still ride in Marin, work in Marin, but canıt afford to live in Marin. Just because you live in Sonoma County, doesnıt mean you can't join the BTC of Marin. We know how good the riding is in Petaluma. So let's get that group out. Help the BTC strengthen its numbers, and better it's political position. Bring your friends to the next General meeting, or pass this newsletter along to a non-member. Our next big meeting will be May 6th, 7:00 p.m., with Blair Lombardi discussing the finer points of balance. Blair has written the book on balance, including a chapter in the U. S. Olympic bicycling training manual. Her methods will dramatically improve the skills of riders of all levels.
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