Rocky Mtn News article 8/5/06

The paths less chosen
Renegade trails are a hit with those in the know, but rules are not clear cut
Marc Piscotty © News Trails in the West Magnolia Trail System near Nederland, like the one M.O. Alford is traversing, probably were cut by motorcycles, which no longer are allowed. Alford helps educate riders about access issues regarding the trails and to help ensure resource conservation in the area.
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By Hannah Nordhaus, Special to the News August 5, 2006
They are most everywhere you ride your mountain bike, but you may never know they're there. Many are hidden behind
minefields of deadfall and tangled brush, made to be missed.
They are renegade trails - built, improved or maintained by local hikers, bikers and motocross enthusiasts, and frequented only by those in the know. They contain singletrack so narrow you are fighting off limbs and bushes as you ride, so untouched by bike tires that you may never see a rut or a washboard. They often have clandestine names like "Double Super-Secret."
Land managers call them "social" and "user- created" trails. Many routes have been frequented for years by locals to walk their dogs or connect to other trails. Others were created specifically for motorcross or mountain biking and are purposely hidden from view - riders walk their bikes around piles of deadfall and tangled brush to get out of sight of the sanctioned trail or road, to keep nosy rangers and unworthy passers-by off the scent.
These trails can be found on local, state and federal lands across Colorado. The forests off the Peak to Peak Highway near Nederland are crisscrossed with them.
Many of Fruita's most popular mountain bike trails - they now are the town's major attraction - originally were renegade routes hand built by a group of locals using Pulaskis (ax-mattock combination tools used for firefighting) and Italian grape arbor tools, which local bike shop owner Troy Rarick describes as "garden hoes on steroids."
Rumor has it that bikers even have built short-lived downhill trails on uber-regulated City of Boulder Open Space.
People build rogue trails in order to fill an unmet need, Boulder Mountain Bike Patrol director Jason Vogel said.
"Most of these people would rather be riding bikes than building trails, but they can't find the experience they're looking for on the officially sanctioned trails - either a more technically challenging trail, or a significant connection between trail systems, or a longer ride, or one they can do from their house."
Rarick said renegade-trail builders in Fruita tend to focus their efforts in areas that have not yet been incorporated into local land management plans.
"What they do is find areas that are out of the way, and once these areas start to get planned and mapped by the (Bureau of Land Management), mountain bikers say, 'Look, we've already got rides out there.' "
Public land agency policies vary on the legality of using these trails - in places such as Boulder County Open Space, bikers are required to stay on designated trails at all times.
On Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management property, the rules are less clear cut: cross-country travel is legal for hikers, bikes and horses unless otherwise marked. Motorcycles and ATVs, though, only can be on trails that are specifically designated as open for motorized use.
It is illegal to construct bootleg trails on most all public land. The Forest Service, for instance, prohibits "constructing, placing or maintaining" trails without authorization.
If a person is caught building a renegade trail on Forest Service land, he or she is subject to a ticket and fine, about the same as a speeding ticket - about $75 currently. On Boulder County Open Space, fines begin at $50.
Riding on such a trail, unless it is signed, falls into more of a "gray area," though. While you're allowed to ride anywhere, you are not permitted to maintain illegal trails; riding on such a trail could be construed as maintaining it.
If a renegade trail is found, officials often will "obliterate" it, but they might ignore longtime social trails on Forest Service land, which aren't officially illegal - although they are not officially legal, either. Once travel management plans are completed, a process that will take several years, those trails will either be "in" or "out" of the system, and all illegal trails will be obliterated, resources permitting.
Some mountain bike enthusiasts have interpreted regulations to mean that it is legal to create new trails if you don't take tools to the land, relying instead on your bike tracks to tamp down the vegetation and using your hands to move aside downed branches and loose rocks that are in the way.
Ed Perault, recreation staff supervisor of the Boulder Ranger District of the Arapaho- Roosevelt National Forest, argues against such legalistic interpretations.
"Your hand is a tool, your bike wheels are tools," he said. "If you have the intent of going back and riding the same trail again, that can be interpreted as trail construction. You're breaking the law and you're tearing up the forest."
Vogel, who has a Ph.D. in environmental policy, believes these guerrilla trails are examples of why more sanctioned routes are needed.
While many renegade trails are beautifully built, contouring and rolling along hillsides to allow water to run off and control excessive speeds, others drop straight down the fall line, creating ruts and erosion problems and are cut through ecologically sensitive areas, disrupting wildlife and native plants.
One such route in Boulder County, the Cactus Trail, drops steeply down a hillside like an open wound.
"It looks like the Earth just vomited rocks onto its surface, with loose, red rocks tumbling down the mountain," Vogel said. "We need to figure out a way to build challenging trails that aren't an environmental disaster. Otherwise, people will build a trail like that; it will erode . . . and then, when it's not rideable anymore, they will build another one nearby."
Vogel instead would like to see cooperation along the lines of what developed in Whistler, British Columbia, where land managers, struggling to keep up with a proliferation of illegal trails, ultimately decided it was better to legalize and regulate the trails than to risk having bikers build new, unsustainable ones in environmentally sensitive areas.
"Now, Whistler is a mecca, a destination where thousands and thousands of people go to recreate on their bikes," he said, "and they don't have rogue trail-building problems anymore."
Local bikers have made some progress. In Boulder County, outside Nederland, the Forest Service incorporated the West Magnolia complex of social trails into its official system with the help and volunteer services of the local mountain bike community.
Local mountain bikers helped identify the trails and install kiosks and signs, and now bike patrollers such as Vogel assist the Forest Service in managing the trail system, passing out maps, aiding riders with mechanical or medical issues and educating them about proper trail etiquette.
Soon, the Boulder Ranger District, which is facing skyrocketing visitor numbers and increased user conflict and resource degradation, will conduct similar reviews in other popular mountain bike areas. The extent of the renegade bike trails officially adopted will depend on the participation and commitment of local bikers and available funding, as well as other priorities, such as resource protection and competing uses.
After the trail systems are updated, bikes will be allowed only on official system routes specifically identified for mountain bike use, and the current "gray area" of semilegal social trails will be off-limits to bikers.
"We aren't going to turn our heads anymore," Perault said. "Unfortunately, we don't have the financial resources to be able to sustain the trail system that the public
really wants. It's a tough scene, but the Forest Service is facing making some pretty serious decisions in the next few years, and it will affect a lot of folks."
Similar reviews are being conducted for other Front Range forests, and the resulting restrictions won't just apply to bikes. That means no more camping outside designated campsites, no bushwhacking on your horse and no more unfettered renegade trail riding.
"Very few people understand that this era is coming to an end," Vogel said.