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Re: [RC] RE:Narrow trails - Linda Marins

 
----- Original Message -----
 

Carol, your message is priceless!  Love your last sentence.  :-))
I wouldn't want a freeway, either, but I think a 3-4 foot wide trail without a guardrail would be safer than a 2-foot wide eroding trail that drops off 1,000 feet... I still think Tevis is enough of a challenge without dangerous trails.  ...Someday, someone is going to be killed on that trail and the WSTF may have more trouble on its hands than it wants...
Two comments:
 
  - Land managers are going more and more toward keeping trails as
    narrow as possible.  The main reason is they don't want a trail
    wide enough for an ATV to get down.  Signs don't work, but
    if the trail is physically just too narrow, the ATV's will stay off.
 
    The reason can be even more Machiavellian (depends on your
    land manager and the pressures he/she is facing, both from other
    user groups, but most particularly from his/her regional management).
    They *want* the trail officially classified as "Primitive" with almost
    no maintenance so that they can justify excluding certain user groups,
    such as pack stock (legaleze for equines and llamas).
 
    These trail classifications and standards, and they way they are
    being manipulated to serve political ends, is what the Backcountry
    Horseman of America is suing the US Forest Service over.
 
    The Cumberland Trail in Tennessee (a state project) is being
    deliberately and calculatingly constructed so as to be impassible by
    anything but a very fit hiker.  They are even putting in "cliff climbs"
    to keep the mountain bikers out.
 
  - I don't know the land managers on this stretch of trail nor the political
    situation WSTF is facing, but if they start getting letters complaining
    that the trail is *dangerous* and *somebody is going to get killed*,
    the USFS's simplest solution is to simply close the trail to horse traffic.
 
Catch-22, I know.
 
Linda Marins
 

Replies
[RC] RE:Narrow trails, Carol Stiles
Re: [RC] RE:Narrow trails, Barbara McCrary