<div>If the USFS insists on allowing mechanized vehicles to be on the CDT, perhaps a compromise can be reached and the number of wheels can be limited to 1....</div>
<div><a href="http://divideby1.blogspot.com/">http://divideby1.blogspot.com</a><br><br></div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 10:48 PM, Brett <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:blisterfree@yahoo.com">blisterfree@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote style="BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; PADDING-LEFT: 1ex" class="gmail_quote">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Arial">In New Mexico, far and away the biggest threat to the CDT that I've seen is OHV abuse of singletrack-constructed trail sections. Use and impact by all other non-motorized user groups combined is so minimal as to be inconsequential, both to the trail and the individual user's experience. But the relative dearth of legitimate trail users, combined with a similar dearth of posted rules, trail identification, and physical barriers to vehicles, has made it unnecessarily easy for motorized users - hunters, ranchers, woodcutters, yahoos - to wander onto singletrack sections of the CDT, either out of ignorance or no fear of reprisal. Even at a rate of a few ATV's per season, the secondary tire track in short order widens the footpath into something resembling a road, and wet ground yields permanent ruts. At some point there's no turning back the damage, or the ever-expanding use by more vehicles, short of a major corridor rehabilitation or realignment. <br>
<br>I'd imagine there are few better opportunities for mountain biking along the NM CDT than in the northern Black Range, on either side of NM Hwy 59. The highway to the trailhead is paved, the new trailhead is well-signed, and the recently-built singletrack trail is gentle and unrocky as it rolls among the pines for mile after mile. Yet the trail is receiving virtually no use by mountain bikers or in fact by any other users, no doubt because it's simply too remote and inconvenient for the sort of done-in-day (or weekend) use that most mountain biking (and hiking, and horseback riding) entails. But the trail IS falling prey to vehicle incursions, for precisely the reasons and in the exact way described above. I'd imagine I'm still among the few who have witnessed this particular example of 'vehicle creep' on an ongoing seasonal basis, having walked this stretch each year for the past 5 years while scouting for the Grand Enchantment Trail project. It's a unique perspective that is personally somewhat anguishing for me.<br>
<br>To the extent that the USFS, CDTA, CDTS and others are willing to engage one another, I would hope that headway could first be made on resolving standing, tangible threats to the trail - consensus issues like motorized vehicle incursions - than on murky and divisive issues which in some cases remain purely academic. That would be a stride down the path toward advocacy, in my book.<br>
<br>- Brett<br><br><br><br></font></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>Cdt-l mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Cdt-l@backcountry.net">Cdt-l@backcountry.net</a><br><a href="http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l" target="_blank">http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>