What’s Up With All The Ribbons?
June 8, 2011
Now that the sun’s shining, many of you are making time to get out on the trails and that’s great to see! You’ve probably noticed that the late snowpack and recent rains have left their mark on our trails. However – we are determined not to be outdone by the weather. We’ve decided to use some of our hard-earned cash to hire a skeleton crew of trail workers to finish up what we started last year, and to ensure that our trail networks are built to withstand whatever mother nature sends our way. This means that we’ve had to shut down some trails and trail sections – hence the pinkribbons and closed signs. What some people fail to realize, however, is that pink ribbons and closed signs are a polite request for riders and hikers alike to respect the hard work of the SMBA and our trail crews, and choose a different route.
For those of you who’ve heeded to our requests and stayed off the trails that are under construction or need some time to heal – a huge thanks! For the rest of you – and you know who you are – we have to admit it’s a little frustrating to see footprints and tire tracks behind the pink ribbons where we’ve just spent some of YOUR club’s funds to fix up a wet spot or install some proper drainage. Our work crews have already reported having to go back and re-do some of their work this year, and rarely a day goes by where they don’t see people out on the closed trails.
So – this email is a desperate plea for you to do the right thing. And also for you to encourage others to do the right thing too. When short sections of trail are ribboned off – please hop off your bike and WALK AROUND the wet spots. As far as trails that are completely closed - we want to open them just as badly as you do, and we are constantly monitoring trail conditions to determine what’s ready to open. We now have the ability to update our website ourselves, so the Trail Conditions page is almost always up-to-date. We recommend that you get in the habit of checking it before you ride.
It’s hard to remember that many of our trails are less than a year old…..but we believe that a little patience and some attention this spring will go a long way to ensuring that the trails are good to go in the future. If you see something that looks like it should be open – send us an email or add a posting to the forum and we’ll attend to it right away. Got any other questions or comments – we’d love to hear them on the forum.