Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Wow, a SWECO.   Cool!   We got to drive one in Trailmaster class, but I don't have a license or anything.   

Those machines are EXTREMELY handy for trail work.  You're right, they cannot "replace dirt."  In a lot of rutted trail

situations, the best solution is to re-route...especially if the original trail was dug in by deer and coyotes, 

rather than by the humans who are tearing it apart. Honestly, if a trail is DESIGNED correctly originally, 

it really can be multi-use...

but few of us have the luxury of using "designed" trails, and instead we work with what 

we've inherited, which is often game trails, kid-trails, or 
"what the heck LET'S GO THAT WAY" trails.

Karen is right:  people often behave as if they have a right to use trails any way they want, including using them 

when the use will clearly cause damage.  Making rules doesn't really solve this problem.   

What really helps is to get people out on the trails FIXING DAMAGE, so they are less inclined to cause it, 

and to "spread the gospel" to them what will listen.  Not everyone will.  I know people who insist on

the right to ride in bad conditions as well as good, and they never have time for trail maintenance.  

Change them what will change, help them what will be helped, and perhaps the rest will follow someday.  I am an optimist.

I speak as a hand-to-gawd reformed mucker-upper of trails.  When I started building and repairing trails,

I could see the damage that users like me were causing.  That's my "born again" moment. 

These days, I pull shoes on my horses when the wet season hits so I'm not tempted to go for speed

on wet trails.  I'm blessed with a tenderfoot mare who tells me where every rock is on the trail, and who will

mutiny if I ask for speed on ground that she thinks is ouchy--which is a LOT of ground if she's barefoot.

She keeps me honest.   When it's time to start reconditioning for spring rides, I put the shoes on and head

for gravel logging roads, because it would be totally stupid and sucky for me to wreck the trails I'd been guarding 

so c
arefully all winter, wouldn't it?   <G>

As for converting the unfaithful, you can't.  I've tried, and I am nothing if not persuasive.  Some folks just don't

want to see the Truth, and if I can't make 'em do it then I despair that anyone can.  Just keep inviting and inviting and inviting

them to the rollicking good times we have fixing trail (argh, I have been known to exaggerate) and then when/if they show up, 

be sure to give lots of cookies--literal and figurative.

It's not so different from training a horse, really.  

laughing all the way,

Aarene

--
Don't just follow where the path may lea
d. 
Instead, figure out where you want to go, and build a sustainable trail to get there. --Ron Silvern 
aarenex@xxxxxxxxxxx