Downhill Mountain Bikers Gain Credibility
October 23rd, 2008
Illegal mountain biking trails have been popping up all along the Wasatch Front. Now instead of trying to eradicate them, Draper City has sanctioned Maple Hollow to be home to the first ever exclusive freeriders trail (no hikers allowed).
-by Heidi Atkin
on a trail in Draper that they have
been digging since March, 2008.
Hall and Howell helped to create
WAFTA, Wasatch Area Freeriders Trails
Association an organization that
develops and maintains freeride trails.
There are hundreds of illegal mountain biking trails spread throughout the Wasatch Front. These trails have created a nuisance for forest service managers, who clean up the debris of wood and trail damage. The very existence of illegal trails is a matter of supply and demand, according to Steve Hall a member of the Board of Directors for Wasatch Area Freeride Trails Association (WAFTA), and is caused by land owners' inability to provide acceptable courses for freeriders; mountain bikers that prefer downhill rides and stunts.
On one side are the riders who want credibility for their sport and a place to practice downhill extreme biking. On the other side are land owners, like the United States Forest Service, who feel like they cannot offer all of the resources necessary to entertain a new extreme sport. If history offers a lesson, gaining credibility for a new mountain sport takes a great deal of time and perseverance. Consider the introduction of snowboarding as a popular sport approximately twenty years ago; it took years for snowboarders to gain enough credibility to legally share the mountain with their skiing counterparts. Now, it's the freeriders beseeching the forest service for credibility on the mountain and a dedicated trail to go with it, without the proper amenities, the sport remains deviant in nature because of its use of illegal trails.
An illegal trail, according to Hall, is a trail or stunt on a trail that has been built without the consent of the landowner.
The location of illegal trails is a heavily guarded secret by those who know of their existence. Landowners choose not to disclose the location of trails to avert the use of the illegal trails. Bikers refuse to share the location of trails to avoid landowners learning about the trails, or augmentations, and destroying them. Both user groups readily admit that illegal trails are rampant across the Wasatch Front.
Steve Scheid, Recreation Program Manager for the United States Forest Service described a trail located in Little Cottonwood Canyon that is heavily used and was illegally built. He said building a similar trail was considered by the forest service, but not built because of watershed, floodplain and wildlife issues. Mountain users disagreed and built the trail on their own. The forest service lacks the necessary resources to remove the trail entirely and so, it exists.
Hall described a legal trail in Bountiful that has an approximately 1,000 foot illegal section with bike stunts.
The popular Mill D trail in Big Cottonwood Canyon is full of "illegal trail building by rogue groups," according to Ryan Miller, the International Mountain Bicycling Association's (IMBA) Utah Representative. Miller also suggested that the popular Bobsled trail in North East Salt Lake City is a, "bastion of strange work," referencing some of the illegal implements on the trail. Both trails are legal trails, set aside by their landowners for trail use, but both trails are ridden with illegal augmentations, unapproved by the landowners.
IMBA, for it's part, discourages illegal trail building and suggests that landowners remove or destroy illegal augmentations, according to Miller.
In recent years the forest service has spent countless hours removing truckloads of wood and other debris created by illegal trail maintenance. The forest service reserves the right to ticket illegal trail builders, but lacks the resources and so has never exercised that option, according to Scheid. "Generally we just keep track of the trail system. We don't have the staff to really go in and patrol it. If we find out there's jumps or things along that line we'll go in and try to remove those to the best of our ability," said Scheid.
WAFTA, suggests that developers consider legal trail augmentations to placate the biking community that will just build new trails and jumps if old ones are removed.
IMBA does not oppose trail building and WAFTA doesn't encourage illegal trail building. Instead, according to Miller, the focus is on working with land managers to build legal trails. Miller hopes that a free ride park will someday be built to accommodate the growth that wheeled mountain sports have seen in recent years. Until then, he says, Deer Valley, which has a plethora of expert rated mountain biking and freerider trails, is a great option.
with the mountain biking community along the
Wasatch Front.
Draper City, recognizing its need to eradicate illegal trails has joined with WAFTA to build a legal downhill only trail that caters to the freeriders organization.
WAFTA members who are trained in trail building and maintenance, together with Draper city's engineer and the trails committee, planned and designed a trail that is currently being built. WAFTA members are building the trail entirely with service hours and tools borrowed from Draper City. "We built a section that is downhill only with freeride type stunts in it," explained Hall of the trail that isn't slated to be completed until spring 2009.
Brad Jensen, Draper City's Project Manager for Parks and Trails, explained that the city has had numerous problems with illegal augmentations to trails, especially in the Corner Canyon area. The designation of a downhill only trail for Draper City was primarily to mitigate the illegal building of trail augmentations, which he says are dangerous and built at night and on weekends when no one is monitoring the sites.
"It's the same scenario we've had with skateboards. We build a skate park to get them off commercial area and sidewalks where they shouldn't be. We hope this will curb the illegal construction of these freeride elements," said Jensen.
Altering a trail without permission of a landowner is a serious offense. In Draper, according to Jensen, the perpetrator will be charged with a Class B misdemeanor and if found guilty can receive jail time and or a fine as determined by a judge.
Mountain bikers contend that they give countless hours of service maintaining the trails that they use and aren't a crooked group, but an asset to the trail. "Mountain bikers have shown they are a valuable user group. People, in many cases do quite a bit of good," said Miller.
"For the most part people who are serious about biking try to do the right thing," according to Barrett Milenski, a member of both IMBA and WAFTA. "I don't think it is unreasonable to ask that the mountain biking community gets one trail just for us."
Story Commments
Blain Richards
To agree with another post that one dedicated trail is not going to satisfy the problem. As a sport that seems to be picking up momentum, its needs should be assessed by the Forestry dept. and the processes to get permits to build trails sped up. The riders should build the trails themselves. The Forestry dept would not need to worry about the labor costs because riders will build if they are allowed to. The Forestry service would just need to supervise the build after the permits are obtained. Until the process is sped up to get permits to allow groups of riders to build a legal trail, illegal trails will get built by the few riders dedicated to do so. If riders waited to get through all the red tape involved they would not have trails to ride if they did not build some themselves. An even bigger issue is safety. Riding down the same trails that hikers go up is not a safe situation for dh type of riding. As the sport grows the process will need to be sped up.
From George
These bikers build trails wherever they want. i have nothing against their very athletically demanding sport, other than they build tons and tons of illegal trails.
Can someone say moose?
you don't gain legitimacy by building illegal trails because you think you are owed trails.
if these bikers want to be respected, they should tear down their illegal trails and then sit down in a publicly open process to plan these obstacle courses they like to ride.
From B Safarik
It also should be noted that the statement '...[there are] hundreds of illegal mountain biking trails spread throughout the Wasatch Front...' is a GROSS exaggeration of the truth. In reality you can count the number on one hand, with perhaps a finger or two carrying over to the other, depending on your definition of 'illegal' and 'trail'. It's inflammatory misstatements like that that get people all up-in-arms over mountain bikers. Until they learn the truth, that is, which is where organizations like WAFTA and IMBA come in.
From Ben Miller
I disagree with the use of the word "extreme" throughout this article. There is nothing extreme about going outside to ride your bike. Labeling this an "extreme" sport excludes it from the realm of normal, socially acceptable forms of recreation. You ostracize a healthy and positive sport. I think the community should do more to embrace positive and healthy outdoor activities such as mountain biking, in all its incarnations. If there are this many people willing to risk breaking the law to build trails, why don't we take advantage of all their creativity and energy and direct it towards building a safe and fun downhill biking area? Look at the success skate parks in urban areas have had at reducing youth crime. This could be a similar success.
re: Brian Balls
Ben, I'm not sure you understand the intended use for this trail. It's not a trail for your everyday mountain biker, down hill and freeride tracks are built for highspeed, giant jumps and obsticals that most people don't have the cahones to try. DH, freeride is a very extream sport.
From Dave
One Freeride trail in Utah's not going to eliminate the problem. Tell hikers they can only hike on one legal trail in Utah and see what happens. This new trail is a great step in the right direction but it will not satisfy all abilities or all needs in this dept. Much more attention needs to be given this sport if illegal trails are to be curtailed.
From Kay Cee Jacobson
Thanks for giving credit and recognition to the WAFTA organization. They are doing great things and are great peeps. I can't wait to get out and ride the new trail in Draper on my whimpy cross country bike. Here's hoping this is the first of many, many successful builds for you guys. Congratulations to all.
