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Hall Ranch Trail Re-route looks lame

4K views 48 replies 20 participants last post by  jugdish 
#1 ·
So has anyone else seen the new planned route for the Hall Ranch trail at the top of the rock garden? The work day is September 29th an I encourage anyone that would like to keep our front range single track fast and fun to ride to show up. They are re-routing because of the muddy conditions the existing trail has during the winter. But, the new re-route is as non-fallline as a trail can get. Show up and encourage them to remove all the 180 turns and build a trail that is fun to ride and is more in the overall fast-flowing-technical nature of Hall Ranch.
 
#34 ·
It's in Boulder County Open Spaces charter, although not explicit, to manage with a bias towards preservation over recreation. What is explicit in its charter is that all recreation will be passive recreation. Mountain biking is also explicitly written in as passive recreation. What passive means, though, is at the discretion of those in charge. Right now, those in charge are Ron Stewart (self appointed head of OS) and 3 county commissioners. Decisions are based on that hierarchy. If low level management is comfortable making a decision, they will. If they are not comfortable making that decision, even something like trail layout can, and will, and has, gone all the way to the top - Ron Stewart. You could say that the trail crew in general on OS property manages with a WWRD attitude. In the counties eyes, mellow and flowy lines are passive and get bikers out enjoying the beauty of Open Space. Steep trails, features, etc, are for thrillseekers and are not conducive to multi usability nor are they conducive to passive recreation.

To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised someone in OS ok'd this reroute at all. Moving the trail a few feet out of the existing trail corridor is generally ok, but an obvious change in thinking reroute like this generally can only be approved in a parkwide management plan review and re-draft.

Yes, the background politics are really that bad. Be stoked you can ride what little you can ride on County OS trails. For real ass hauling, no regard for who's around the corner type of fun, go to US Forest lands. It's what my "riding circle" does.

edit - I am absolutely not trying to start an eflame or get personal, strictly trying to explain that even something like a minor trail reroute has extremely deep political roots. Just trying to clarify the politics behind something that seems, on the surface, should be a no brainer. Anyone up for a BoCo political discussion, come on by Redstone. Beers are on me.
 
#38 ·
Soft Bike Ban

It's in Boulder County Open Spaces charter, although not explicit, to manage with a bias towards preservation over recreation. What is explicit in its charter is that all recreation will be passive recreation. ....

To be perfectly honest, I'm surprised someone in OS ok'd this reroute at all. Moving the trail a few feet out of the existing trail corridor is generally ok, but an obvious change in thinking reroute like this generally can only be approved in a parkwide management plan review and re-draft.

Yes, the background politics are really that bad. Be stoked you can ride what little you can ride on County OS trails. For real ass hauling, no regard for who's around the corner type of fun, go to US Forest lands. It's what my "riding circle" does.
The truth isn't pretty. Thanks for your blunt observations.

Much the same is being attempted here in CS at Red Rocks Canyon and
Manitou Section 16. Adding @ 35 switchbacks into proposed trail reroutes
in what we were told is a "sustainable" trail design. Stairs were built on some sections before planning even took place.

I'm not going to apologize for calling it for what it is. It's a "soft bike ban".
I can't blame them for trying to "just build something bikers won't want to
use". If I hated bikes, I would do it too. Yes 32x18, that's how politics is
played. I don't make the rules, but I do know how to play the game.

We'll find out soon if our efforts at RRC last year paid off. Browsing the draft docs
online I see where the City has actually admitted hikers and bikers impacts
are the same. A huge victory IMHO. I believe the city abandoning the
process last year was a victory too. The City was scared about the
political fallout of closing trails to bikes, which I believe some in the RRC friends group thought they could do.

I also see these new trail layouts as a passing fad. Hikers will create shortcuts
between the switchbacks, new social trails will be made, and then we'll
need more planning meetings, and more trail maintenance, and more trail
reroutes. We've been down this road before. History repeats itself.
This is nothing new.

I hope that is becoming clear(er) to the MTB advocates that
"Passive recreation" and "sustainable trail design" are both open to
interpretation to suit the circumstances. They can be used to deny or
grant access depending on who is using them and how.

It's almost like the entire open space community is still in denial about the
role mountain biking plays in our local communities and state. It's a
love-hate relationship.

Pretty pictures of MTBers sells airplane tickets and fills hotels, and for
many of us is the reason we moved/live here. Yes Open Space likes our money.

But the reality of sharing trails is too much for NIMBY's.

So while some believe progression mountain biking is dropping a 50' cliff, progression to me will be when we finally move past this juvenile discussion of "who" should be allowed where, and we finally start building trails/parks with mountain bikes in mind. Yeah that's why I'm here.
 
#3 ·
The trail was laid out by the Hall Ranch Ranger, Denny, and Mike from trails crew. Both guys are very cool and open to suggestion. Both are avid riders, too, for what it's worth. Best thing to do if you want to influence the trail is show up and help.

At the end of the day, though, they have to operate within county guidelines for recommended grade, etc for multi use trails, ie lowest common denominator. The goal is to build a trail that'll be as close to 4 season as possible with as little long term maintenance as possible. I haven't seen the flagging yet, but I plan to check out the route tomorrow.
 
#4 ·
The trail was laid out by the Hall Ranch Ranger, Denny, and Mike from trails crew. Both guys are very cool and open to suggestion. Both are avid riders, too, for what it's worth. Best thing to do if you want to influence the trail is show up and help.
If those two are involved, I expect the best possible outcome. Stand up guys fosho.
 
#12 ·
I went up to take a look at the reroute this morning. The flagging is pretty loose at best. Knowing the guys in charge of the project, they'll definitely listen to ideas about potential changes to the flagging. I doubt you'll get it rerouted entirely, but if you show up and have a tool in hand, you'll be able to manage the trail for flow.

Personally, I found the potential of what's flagged to be pretty good. It's going to add quite a bit of extra mileage and it uses the natural terrain pretty well. It's not steep at all, but I believe what's flagged is well in line with the fast and flowy nature of the non-rock garden part of Hall. Think of the Hall Ranch loop uphill in the clockwise direction. I'm stoked for it.

If anyone does the workday on the 29th, swing by the shop afterwards for beers!
 
#13 ·
Erik - the reroute will go from the top of the rock garden and thru the meadow where the doubletrack is down to the junction with Antelope. The plan is to put the trail in an area that drains better and gets more sun so we can ride it more year round.
 
#30 ·
Severe detriment to the quality of the trail is in the eye of the beholder, eh? If you want fall line-esque trails, there are plenty of them around. Check out Left Hand OHV if you want gnarly fall line trails. At Hall Ranch, however, Boulder County is trying to manage for the amount of use this trail gets so they have to do less work to the trail over time. The trail in its current state (pre-reroute) sees pretty major work every couple of years because it is poorly built and easily destroyed.

Personally, I'm cool with it either way. To be able to ride more year round is great, but it's such a short and, IMO, negligible part of the trail that I really don't care. I get the fortune or misfortune to hear about it all day long in the bike shop and I will go as far to say, though, that the vast majority of BoCo's trail users prefer the way Boulder County has been building trails lately. Heil, Hall, Betasso, any of the reroutes or new stuff done in the last few years, most people LOVE. Also, the majority of trail users at Boulder County OS parks have never heard of mtbr. We are a very limited audience.

I hear you williford, but the reality is if you want tougher, faster terrain, there is PLENTY of it out there, and close, too. Just not on Boulder County OS property. Lowest Common Denominator.
 
#37 ·
Severe detriment to the quality of the trail is in the eye of the beholder, eh? If you want fall line-esque trails, there are plenty of them around. Check out Left Hand OHV if you want gnarly fall line trails. At Hall Ranch, however, Boulder County is trying to manage for the amount of use this trail gets so they have to do less work to the trail over time. The trail in its current state (pre-reroute) sees pretty major work every couple of years because it is poorly built and easily destroyed.

Personally, I'm cool with it either way. To be able to ride more year round is great, but it's such a short and, IMO, negligible part of the trail that I really don't care. I get the fortune or misfortune to hear about it all day long in the bike shop and I will go as far to say, though, that the vast majority of BoCo's trail users prefer the way Boulder County has been building trails lately. Heil, Hall, Betasso, any of the reroutes or new stuff done in the last few years, most people LOVE. Also, the majority of trail users at Boulder County OS parks have never heard of mtbr. We are a very limited audience.

I hear you williford, but the reality is if you want tougher, faster terrain, there is PLENTY of it out there, and close, too. Just not on Boulder County OS property. Lowest Common Denominator.
There is a lot of trail building on the docket for the next few years in Summit County. A lot of it is on FS land and some of it on open space. The NEPA seems to be moving along without too much in the way of show stoppers so we should hopefully be starting on some of it this coming building season.
We've had this conversation with the folks from the FS and open space quite a bit - steep and technical vs gradual and flowing. The bottom line always comes back to sustainability. No one in the planning process is "anti fun". or out to "kill fun". They are open to ways to create a variety of experiences, but the trails have to be able withstand the amount of use they get and the elements.

Steep trails have to have either very durable soil types or utilize rock armoring along with a lot of attention paid to drainage control and even then, they require extra maintenance. All those things are possible but they take a lot of labor - something that most folks who complain about how "sanitized" the trails are don't seem to be willing to put the same amount of time and energy into as they do complaining. The FS stance is that those types of trails are best suited for the lift resorts since they are set up to charge fees that pay for the cost of professional maintenance. Open space's stance is "fine, but the more time and money on maintenance, the less time and money we spend on land acquisition and planning and building new trails, that's not a trade off the majority of the public and the elected officials who ultimately make the calls wants us to make". They will also point out quite accurately, if people want steep and rocky, there is plenty of that type of riding around in the old mining roads that abound around here as well as some single track.

You can lessen the grade of the trail but still have lots of rocks and roots rather than a completely buff tread surface which is what we are recommending although we recognize that people tend to go around at lot of this stuff and create braids. (yes we all do it at least some of the time, even you super rad AM brahs with mad skilz out there). So you need to create pinches, narrow tree corridors and so forth to keep people on the trail. Usually though, it's buff, flowing, rolling single track that stays in the best shape and requires the least amount of maintenance.

It all comes down to everything is a compromise in trail design and building. You'll never please everyone. Someone will always be unhappy that a trail doesn't fit what they think is fun and some people will absolutely love that same trail. The trail designer/builder has to work within a lot of constraints, be they social, environmental, financial, availability of volunteers and so on. Folks will always, and should voice their opinion and desires of course, but they should also understand that there is a lot of consideration and balancing that has to go into what a new trail will look like.
 
#33 ·
Agreed, a lame trail for some is exciting for others; it's all opinion. It's good to hear, though hard to believe, that most random users you talk to prefer the way trails are being built. Everyone I've talked to about it thinks it's atrocious, but maybe we ride in different circles. I'm wondering if those who say good things about the new trail designs would be happy with Any new trail no matter how easy/difficult it is, just out of sheer need for more trail. My take is, this section is only going to be ridden by people who went up or down the rock garden, so why make this new section wheelchair accessible?

Yes Picture Rock/new Betasso are good for mountain biking in general and give connection options for bigger rides, but it is sad that the lowest common denominator is the only group catered to with trail building. (Does anyone question why West was caught riding some rogue stuff off of Flag?) Do you know who decides the guidelines for new trails? And why are the guidelines vastly different everywhere else I've ridden?

ohv is great, I probably ride there 10x more than Hall/Heil. It makes me feel a little sketch with the rampant illegal shooting all over the place, and I've had a gun pointed at me twice, but hey it beats riding lame trails. :)
 
#40 ·
When they opened the Benjamin loop at Betasso, I stopped at the bench and one of bikers was saying how this trail sucks and it not technical/waste of time and I'm thinking the complete opposite. I thought it was great. I still think it is great and super fun.

Everyone is going to have a different opinion when a new trail is made or fixed/sanitized. I caught some flack last year when I recommended that the upper portion of Longhornat White Ranch needed to be fixed. People went apeshit and wrote me some really nasty comments on my rep, but it was still a fact that a 4 foot gulley was not sustainable. Yes it is fun going down, but putting waterbars every 15 feet is not good trail design unless you want to work on it every 5 years.

I think it is a good idea for BCOS to move this portion of the trail. In late Febraury the trail becomes a rail road track of people who decided to either hike or bike when the trail was a mud pit.

Erik
 
#41 ·
Does the reroute have anything to do with slowing down the overall speed of mtb'ers as they confront the hordes of runners? Ya know, so many switchbacks nobody gets their STRAVA on and they just mosey along, saying hi to everyone?

And if the chicken is back under a new disguise, I for one will know.
 
#46 ·
The reroute is solely to make, hopefully make, that section rideable in the winter. Secondarily to get rid of the erosion prone trail it's replacing.
Eventually, Boulder will realize the best way to reduce erosion on trails is to outlaw mountain biking. And then Boulder will cease to be a travel destination for mountain biking. Oh, wait...

Rode the reroute last night. One challenge can replace another. I'll look forward to killing more prairie dogs.
 
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