If you ride the CT from Westridge, you know that the start of the trail means a slog up Tiger Road from the Dredge. While it’s a great warmup—and no doubt the prize at the end is home to some of the best riding in the state—we’ve often wondered how cool it would be to ride that first leg on SINGLETRACK.

Well, thanks to the forethought of the Town of Breckenridge, Summit County, and the US Forest Service, the Golden Horseshoe acquisition is going to again allow us just that. And in August, the Galena Ditch trail will be born.

So here are the details: VOC will be leading this project, and you’ll have to register on their site by clicking here.

• When: August 4th and 5th (no you don’t have to commit for the whole weekend!)
• Time: 8am-5pm
• Where: Dredge Lot (staging area) off of Tiger Road, Breckenridge/Summit County
• Limit to amount of people? Yep, so sign up soon. Click here.

See you there!

Thanks, Daniel Dunn Photography for the pics

I can’t help you people in the afterlife, but I can certainly tell you that this is the year that as we head out to our drying trails, we’re finding lots of downed trees impeding our famously flowy singletrack system. And if you’re like me, you can barely cut your fingernails much less carry a hacksaw on your ride.

Thankfully, there are people who do. Like SFTS Board member Mike Zobbe, for example. And Mike is going to be planning all kinds of trail work sessions this year to grab all us novices to help him and others keep the trails clear.

With the weakened roots of dead trees, wind events can topple a tree (some of us are still shuddering from the 125mph breeze that “blew” through Breckenridge this past winter). Be safe: It’s good thing to know the weather before heading out into the woods on a windy day—storm gusts could give you more than just a slight headache.

The Dillon Ranger District of the US Forest Service has been occassionally releasing advisories about tree hazards in the White River National Forest, and you can often find these just by looking at the National Weather Service alerts.

In the meantime, if you come across a tree on the trail, do what twitter follower Ed Carley did and snap a picture, telling us where it is. Town of Breck staff is very much on top of the town-system trails, as are the folks at the County. But sometimes it might take volunteer work to clear the trail in unincorporated areas or on USFS land.

Help us out: Post your fallen tree issue on Facebook, on twitter @summitfattire

And be sure to look up often this summer!

Yes, I’m a bit obsessed.  I stock up on guidebooks for places we might never visit.  I buy maps even if I don’t really need one because a friend is showing us the way or I know the route. But if I bring the map, there is always the possibility of plotting another adventure for another day. My newest purchases spend their first few weeks next to my bed, and as I sit here typing, I count four Colorado topos scattered on my desk.

That is why, ten miles into our mountain bike ride from St. Elmo, at our first questionable junction, I panicked. I had done the unthinkable. I had forgotten the map.

This was not good. I never, ever forget the map.  And this was the kind of ride where I really could use one.  Today wasn’t a simple out and back journey, sticking to one trail. What I could remember, from my brief study session of the route the night before, was that there were quite a few junctions. But at this point, turning around to go get it wasn’t worthy since we were already a third of the way along and weather was coming in.

To continue on, map-less, was so unlike me, but I was looking forward to this adventure. After a rough week at the home front, I needed a high alpine fix – I start to feel anxious and claustrophobic when I spend too much time riding in dark woods. The fun singletrack portion was still ahead and it traveled through my favorite terrain, the subalpine wildflowers and on up across the tundra for seven plus miles, some of it following an old railroad bed and some on the Continental Divide Trail near St. Elmo.

“Well, if it gets confusing we can always turn around and go back the way we came, but I think I might remember the way.”  I told Jeffrey, whose silent response said it all. I knew exactly what was on his mind….he didn’t want to hike with his bike which is what happens when we get lost. The pressure was on.

One thing I’ve learned about orienteering, mostly from skiing, is to not rely on where the roads and trails are highlighted, and where to turn left or right, but instead make a point of also examining what never changes – the topo lines, or the lay of the land, or see if we head north to south, east to west. In the winter, you don’t necessarily follow trails and so you learn to use terrain features as your guideline. Should we parallel a creek or gain the ridge? Are we climbing steeply? How close do we pass under that mountain?  Are we going from one drainage to the next, or are there a few in between?

Of course, despite all that, the night before I had gotten sucked into studying the lines of the roads and the trails and didn’t spend nearly enough time looking at the terrain features. Often roads appear on our outings which are not on the map, or vice versa – roads are on the map but not on the ride, and this makes counting your lefts and rights a bit risky.

This link can give you the details. 

Take the Trails Illustrated Salida/St. Elmo Map with you. A great description can be found in the guidebook “Salida Singletrack” by Nathan Ward. He calls it Saint Elmo to Tin Cup Pass.

Cruisy start up a dirt road for six miles and then six or seven miles of sweet tundra technical singletrack with some hike-a-bike ending with fast descent down Tin Cup Road.

We couldn’t find much dispersed car camping before St. Elmo so we camped closer to Buena Vista on the Raspberry Gulch Road. (see Trails Illustrated Buena Vista map).

The key to protecting the trails for future use (and keeping a good reputation for mountain bikers) is knowing when to turn back. When to ride through the puddle instead of around it. When to stop and let foot traffic go by, or ask an equestrian if it’s OK to pass.

“Skidding (into turns) and making go-arounds are the biggest no-nos,” local pro mountain biker Leland Turner said. This spring and early summer, he’s been sticking to trails in the valleys, and has only recently tried the higher trails that he thinks are mostly dry.

“If you make a route going around, people follow you,” he said. “If you’re going to ride where its muddy, you have to suck it up and ride through it.” He added that deadfall is another problem riders encounter these days, and sometimes they ride around it instead of carrying the bike over the obstacle.

If the mud is too deep or the fallen trees are too thick, Turner would like to see riders pick up their bike and create a less obvious foot path to protect the trail. Same with beginners — if the obstacle is too hard, carry the bike instead of riding around or trying to remove the rock or branch.

 

Read the whole piece over at Summit Daily News

The League of American Bicyclists has a great site all about bike maintenance. Check it out here.

One last fix at the desert

After a winter of seeing mostly white and gray, it was such a treat to take that first trip to the desert and suddenly see not just green, but pink….red….purple….yellow.  Hopefully a few of you still have one more trip to the desert since Moab and Fruita are starting to peak right about now. We had our best flower rides on the Klondike Bluffs ride in Moab and the Loma/Mack Kokopelli zone in Fruita (Photos 1-5).  I have never seen so many dense patches of sego lilies as I did outside of Mack, and these were in an odd spot – along the drab frontage road! We actually saw more flowers on that road stretch back to Loma then we did on the actual singletrack.

First Summit County Blooms

Sagebrush flowers are some of my favorites. And yes, Summit County does have a few great zones for these. Check out the Williams Fork Ride (across the highway from Cow Camp Campground). I would say mid-June is when this area peaks. Another great sagebrush flower zone is the lower Ptarmigan Trail where the Balsam flower blooms first. Tenderfoot Road and an out and back on the singletrack is another one. And you gotta hand it to the Summit Cove region for sagebrush color in mid June.  Or there is always the short Betty’s Trail and the other neighborhood trails right across the street from my house in French Creek.

End of June and into early July (esp this year!)

Finally the woods are dry and the wildflowers in the woodsy zones go off. Nothing better than the entire Summit Cove/Colorado Trail zone for these blooms. Has anyone else noticed that since the Pine Beetle epidemic, (dead trees not using water) the Arnica is now flourishing?  And it’s always worth riding out and back on the Aquaduct Trail for the overdose of Blue Flax.

Best June Flower Ride (Might be late June this year, or early July?):

Pence Miller Trail. Whew. The wildroses combined with lupine and aspens and going as fast as you can on this buffed trail….I CAN’T WAIT !!

First, the good news:

Mostly, the good news is that we really didn’t lose much. Please email and tell us what is missed. I confess, I don’t know the Ryan Gulch trails that well.

It looks like almost all of the trails around Tiger Road/Horseshoe Gulch/Summit Cove were kept open with the exception of the ‘Mushroom Trail.” This is a surprise since many of these were threatened to be closed.

Siberian Loop is still non-motorized; 100 acres trail is now officially a mtn bike trail; CDT Trail near Warden Gulch is open to bikes: Argentine Pass is open to mtn bikes:

Switched from motorized to non-motorized – Burro Trail; that rough 4wd road below south Mt Helen is now non-motorized; lower McCullough Gulch Road; eastern end of PA ridge Road; Black Gulch Road; Little French Road; Yellow Brick Road; Great Flume; Horseshoe Basin in upper Peru Creek

Now the bad news:

Decommissioned – “Stables Trail” – this is a bit of a bummer but it did need some TLC. This is the steep singletrack from Spruce Valley Ranch Horse Stables up to Boreas Pass Road (but they left in the similar but just as eroded ‘Secret’ Trail – that dirtbike singletrack that connects Boreas Pass Road to the meadow of Indiana Creek).

Also decommissioned – a lot of trails/old roads around Baldy -maybe “Pinball”Trail, but hard to tell; “Okie highway”; “Powerline (steep trail into Bakers Tank) Powerline road into Bakers Tank; 360 trail off PA Ridge; lots of the old jeep roads around lower Quandary;  Wheeler Flats Trail (old railroad grade next to Hwy 91); steep but fun road up to Ruby Gulch which is below Grays/Torreys; lots of very short stretches of social trails that connect Wildernest Road to the Ryan Gulch/Salt Lick zone

Closed to bikes but open to hikers: Tunnel Trail (sad loss); Corral Creek Trail off Vail Pass; Upper Fredonia Gulch Road; CDT Trail from Georgia Pass to Santa Fe Peak

Lessons Learned:

1. Get involved when the Forest Plan is revised. The Forest Plan was released before the Travel Management Plan (TMP).  It is more of the general division of land in Summit County. The Forest Plan doesn’t look at specific trails and roads (which the TMP does)  it just defines in a general way the level of protection a parcel of land will receive. So for instance, the terrain around Eisenhower Tunnel was given a higher level of prescription (5.5 Forest Landscape Linkages – a fancy way of saying this is a wildlife travel corridor, in particular a lynx travel corridor and so mechanized Travel is not recommended in this Forest Plan prescription. Because of this, the Travel Management Plan was able to close the Tunnel Trail to mountain bikes because of this Forest Plan designation. We need to start dialogue with Forest Service folks now, as to why mountain bikes should be on equal level with hikers in some cases. It just doesn’t make sense that this awesome trail is packed with hikers and off leash dogs but mountain bikes are not permitted. Seasonal closures, dogs not allowed – all ways to be pro-active in protecting this sensitive area.
2. GPS trails and roads or make sure the Forest Service does. It was a surprise that even after commenting numerous times about a few roads and trails (Mushroom Trail, Dysersville singletracks and the cabin road as an example) these routes were still not recognized by the forest service. Thus, they are considered closed routes. Kind of a shock since one of these routes is such a developed 4WD road.
3. Start discussion on what are the needs of mountain bikes. Corral Creek was closed to mountain bikes because “it isn’t a complete loop.” True, you have to hike your bike for about ten minutes under I-70 and through some weeds, but I’ve always believed that mountain biking can include some hike-a-bike. Maybe I’m wrong though and this is just the old school in me when we hiked with our bikes often. But what are our needs? More trails at higher altitudes? More smooth routes? Aren’t out and backs okay? Short rides fine or does it always have to be a certain distance???

I am not covering most of Golden Horseshoe here since Town of Breckenridge is covering all of that and knows this area better than I do.

This year especially, it is a simple concept that snowpack and cyclist anticipation are directly correlated with one another.  Warm weather and drying terrain will certainly promote an increased excitement among all cyclists—from professional leg-shavers to bike path-letes, rigid-fixie-singlespeed legends to the greenest big-travel nubes, everyone will be raging to ride in one of the highest-used recreation areas in the United States: our very own White River National Forest.

Exciting though your singletrack-dreams may be, this year more than ever is a time forpatience and intelligence when it comes to trail-use.  We all have to cope with the fact that our favorite trails may not be ridable until July, but when they do finally open, do you really want to be “that guy” or “girl” responsible for destructive braiding and nasty ruts?  Above anything else, these are the kinds of activities that give mountain bikers a bad name, resulting in trail decommission, mountain bike prohibition, and a lack of respect from trail-users (including other cyclists).  With this in mind, here are some handy trail-etiquette tips all users should follow:

Braiding: What it is and why you shouldn’t

Braiding is the act of diverging from a trail in certain areas in order to avoid unfavorable conditions, including mud, downed trees, rocks, or anything else that may exceed the rider’s technical ability.  If you are unable to ride a trail on the designated route, WALK.  In the specific case of mud, if you are unwilling to get your bike or your feet dirty, might I make a recommendation: road biking?  Braiding is the most destructive decision you can make out on the trail… do not do it, period.

Mud: You can handle it

If I remember one thing from my elementary school years, it is a song we used to sing about “Mud:”

Mud, mud, glorious mud! Can’t go around it, can’t go over it, can’t go under it, gotta go throughit!  Mud, mud, glorious mud!

Though the rhyme had its purpose in teaching second graders about prepositions, for trail-users it holds an equally important message—one that we have all heard before:  RIDE YOUR BIKE through everything.  I know, most of us are from Colorado—even the thought of that goopy east-coast slop they call “mud” makes us cringe.  “But what about my bottom bracket?” “I just cleaned my bike!” etcetera etcetera… we’ve all heard it before.  But before you get all high and mighty Colorado-native on us, I’ll let you in on a little secret.  Of all the surfaces you’ll ride on that shiny new whip of yours, by far the most destructive is dry dirt.  Generally speaking, materials that lack water content wreak havoc on bicycle parts.  So, at the end of the day, even though you might’ve dirtied up that beautiful new paintjob, your bike will thank you for it.  That, coupled with the fact that riding through snow drifts, deep puddles, and muddy sections is what makes us mountain bikers, should be enough argument for riding through (not around) the mud.

Okay, but how much is too much?

Now that you’ve accepted the concept of getting a little dirty, it’s time to ask yourself, “how much is too much?”  Sure, mud is a beautiful thing, but like with everything else, it is healthiest in moderation.  Riding the Middle Flume Trail in Breckenridge in May while there are 6 inches of standing water for mile-long sections is not displaying proper trail etiquette, no matter how faithful you are to the trail’s route.  Summit County is a high-alpine desert, which means that the soil does not respond well to excessive moisture.  Standing water and runoff does not saturate into the ground well, and so we must rely on processes like evaporation to occur before riding is possible.   Unfortunately, this is where patience comes into play.  Despite how much fun mud can be, the general rule of thumb on Summit County Trails is: ANY mud is TOO MUCH mud.  Riding muddy trails ruins them for later in the season, creating ruts that can become extremely dangerous once dry.   A perfect example of this destruction is in the Soda Creek Trail System, where whole sections of trail have had to be re-routed due to trail misuse.  Rutting may reach the point where trails require decommission until trail-maintenance crews can be dispatched.  Often, trails that need this kind of work get put on the end of a long list of trail projects, or even worse, they may be closed for good.  With this in mind, be actively aware of the current trail conditions, and exercise a fair amount restraint when perusing your favorite routes during mud-season.

Educate yourself. And others.

Trail etiquette is not a recommendation, it is a requirement.  Each year, more and more trail-users frequent Summit County pursuing recreation in the place we’ve all come to love in our own way.  Mountain biking is possibly the fastest growing activity in the area, and the trail conditions are representative of that.  In an effort to maintain order out on the trail-system, it is your job as a trail-user to KNOW the trail-etiquette of your sport, including yielding (cyclists yield to ALL other non-motorized users), right of way (uphill rider always has it and deserves it), and wildlife interaction (do not feed bears, for example).  The most important thing you can do as an educated trail-user is to promote accurate trail-etiquette by setting a good example, and by instructing those who are ignorant or blatantly conflicting with proper trail-use.  By doing so, you serve an important role in making our trails more enjoyable for all trail-users and promote a positive image of mountain biking to the public.

Haven’t heard of Life Cycles? Check out this trailer, and you’ll see why it’s lovingly referred to the way it is. It truly is an amazing piece of sports cinematography. And while there’s no skin, you won’t even notice:

I am also more than ready to get my hands dirty working on this summer’s trail projects.  We’re excited to partner with the USFS, Friends of the Dillon Ranger District,  Summit Mountain Bikers, and IMBA for these upcoming trail days.  Stay tuned for details!