Trail building in S. Arizona

I posted this first in the "Dear Arizona..." thread but thought it probably deserves its own separate thread.

Hyperlinked are three (3) fairly recent (2/5/13) newspaper articles, sent to me by Albert Newman, about two (2) mountain bikers and a hiker who built or improved trails in the Coconino National Forest in Sedona.

At least one (1) was fined five hundred dollars ($500.00).

It appears he was lucky and did not get banned for life from the forest.

As a result of the trail building, the Coconino is now considering banning cross country mountain biking.

They are also pointing to Internet web sites that describe trails.

I fear there may be a lesson here for us in S. Arizona.

azdailysun.com/news/local/3…

azdailysun.com/news/local/2…

redrocknews.com/News/bikers…

Scott Mc

I just saw a video where the bikers were on private property building jumps and shit, thats cool. I know what happens after a jump to regain control of a 2 wheeled bike and its all in the back brakes which erode the shit out of the landing.

you would figure that they would have better things to do like combat the drug cartels growing in the forest...

paysonroundup.com/news/2006…

Apparently, there is more, one fellow fined $1,000.00 and banned for two (2) years from the Coconino:

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/trail-building-prompts-fine-in-sedona/article_c9a4ec54-6a4a-549b-a42a-311591e26368.html

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/20120815sedona-trail-builder-sought-forest-service.html

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Photos-Officials-searching-for-those-who-made-illegal-trail-in-Sedona-166200826.html

It's like a first assent MTBer's just want to get the same satisfaction, from creating something, that climbers do.

The Sedona Drama at forums.mtbr.com/arizona/ is always entertaining.

There is definitely, as one poster points out, a sense of entitlement in the MTB community. Basically how can something so rad be wrong?

It is illegal to make improvements on FS land. Somehow climbers have been getting way with making improvements for years. I think some MTBer's would have a cow if the knew what climbers get away with. Considering that they get fined for doing similar things.

Grow operations in the forest causing damage is bad, people cutting trails where ever they want to also bad, climber building stairs seems to fall into the same category.

The stairs posted in the other thread look pretty well done, and they are likely needed to prevent erosion. The problem comes only if they were done with out permission. The FS has to look at it all as an illegal improvement.

Tim McCabe wrote:The stairs posted in the other thread look pretty well done, and they are likely needed to prevent erosion. The problem comes only if they were done with out permission. The FS has to look at it all as an illegal improvement.