Great articles! Great points! I'll make a few more, but first...
To really experience many of these articles' issues first hand, sign up for one of Tyler's work parties right now. Here's this Saturday's:
Evergreen MTB Calendar.
Dish it out -- I can take it
-- but that's not just a plug. He may first put you to work digging in the dirt and rocks on Preston, but he may also take you down to dig on the hand-built section of the Silent Swamp DH or help finish up the machine built section. Then ride out on a new un-opened 1.5 mi mostly downhill combo of old road grade conversion, hand-built and machine built singletrack.
Talk to him about the issues presented in the "Fundamental Problem with Modern Work Parties" and the "McDonalds of Trail Building" articles. You'll see and experience many of them first hand. Take a look at some of the hand vs machine built sections and talk to Tyler about it. Talk about the impact of volunteer turn-out, individual volunteers' impact on how a trail turns out, when individual volunteers can be given freedom to exercise creativity and put their personal touch on a trail and when it's not possible, the amount of work it takes in a tough environment like Tiger, etc. Crew leaders and trail builders will learn a lot from you too.
We need turn-out this winter folks! Or there is a chance we won't be able to open Silent Swamp in the Spring... and we won't be able to start the new all downhill trail that's in the plan.
Now that all of you are going to sign up for a work party, I urge everybody to read these articles *all* the way through beforehand. That includes the more educated, educational and objective comments at the end. And hit some of the links to other related articles. Don't just read the headlines and a couple opening blurbs to form your opinions. Politicians and pundits love and count on the fact that we do that!
Just this one pic and caption could be the basis for a hundred discussions and something I've been thinking about for years:
"It's unlikely this trail will provide a wonderfully unique experience."
A million things to say about it, but one thing then I gotta run down to Swan Creek to help build more machine built *and* hand-built trails...
Why do we even use machines? Cost, schedule, volunteer turn-out, land manager requirements all factor in, but some trails can't be built by hand. When you're working with Tyler this Saturday, set down your bike take a left turn off Silent Swamp in the 10-15 year old clearcut. You'll barely be able to walk through it. Same for areas of the South Fork.
It takes more manpower to flag a line in there than to build the same line through through a 50+ year old forest. Obviously we want to stay away from those areas, but it often isn't possible. Much of the future Raging River trail network is going to have be built through nasty clearcuts.
Huge thanks to all the trail gnomes out there!
Cheers,
Mike