ridecamp@endurance.net: Riding in national forests in Georgia

Riding in national forests in Georgia

Duncan Fletcher (dfletche@gte.net)
Thu, 22 May 1997 10:55:40 -0700

The following exchange was picked up from a bicycle list. I have been
working with mountainbikers to resolve conflicts, and my purpose in this
post is to obtain information about the situation in the national forests
in Georgia.

Duncan Fletcher
dfletche@gte.net

> >In the meantime, I urge any club that does not have a good
> >relationship with equestrian groups to make it a priority to
> >establish one. Some of the ways you can do this is to exchange
> >speakers at meetings, conduct joint work parties, put on joint events
> >(e.g. a poker ride where bikes and horses share the trail), and trade
> >newsletters.
>
> I find this interesting as I am in a truly unique situation in my area
> (Augusta GA). Horses are not allowed on the local hiking / biking trails.
> The reasons cited by the USFS are that they break the low strength
bridges,
> tear up the trails, and despite pleas and multiple attempts to rally
their
> help with trail work, have done nothing. They do occasionally show up and
> ride illegally. We generally confront them, they play ignorant or state
> that they have a right to be there regardless of what the sign says
(sound
> familiar?). We hopefully find a trailer and get a tag number and the USFS
> gives them a call to shock them back to reality.
> Once the USFS, at their expense put on a Bar-B-Q for the equestrians to
> draw them out for a trail work day. 2 showed up. Then they call the USFS
> and piss and moan about more trail access. I say screw 'em. If the local
> equest won't pay their dues, why should I have to ride or work on their
> ripped up trail damage and dodge their stool piles?
> OTOH, our club has almost singularly maintained approx 50 miles of trail,
> without help from equestrians or hikers. We have also contructed or
> re-opened trails for the Corp of Engineers, which by the way, are the
> easiest agency to work with I have ever seen. With the USFS, we have been
> pulling teeth trying to get our NEPA surveys up to date. The Corp says,
go
> build a trail, we'll take care of the survey. They are begging us to
build
> trail. If I had the manpower in volunteers, I could build over a 100
miles
> of trails in the next 9 months.
>

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