Two city boards approved a plan Thursday to close illegal trails in local mountain parks, with a caveat the closures would coincide with the completion of alternative routes or new trails, when possible.
The Parks and Recreation and Natural Land Preservation advisory boards voted by an overwhelming majority to approve a natural-surface trails report that designates mountain-bike trails in Overend Mountain Park, Dalla Mountain Park and Horse Gulch for closure and outlines some general plans for new trails.
Quite a few members of the local mountain-bike community have opposed closures because alternative tails requiring the same level of skill do not exist.
Racer Payson McElveen told the boards he must leave town to find more challenging trails.
“Just training in Durango is no longer cutting it,” he said.
The need for the trails was echoed by Durango DEVO biking coaches.
However, some of the illegal trails, built by the mountain-bike community, are causing erosion problems. Others cross private property or are not allowed under conservation easements that govern some city open spaces, said Kevin Hall, the assistant director of community development.
All of the board members, except Adam Howell, agreed with Hall’s reasoning.
Howell voted against the plan, in part, because he thinks wording makes the approval of new trails dependent on mountain bikers stopping the practice of building social trails.
“I don’t see an end to illegal trail-building,” he said.
Other board members and members of the public said that social trails have a long history in Durango, and encouraging members of the community to get city approval will require a culture change.
But if the new trails are better than what can be built socially, it will make the transition easier.
“The simplest way to get this old stuff eliminated would be to compete with it effectively,” said Ed Zink, a Natural Lands Advisory Board member.
Trails 2000 plans to propose three new challenging mountain-bike trails that could be built this summer if approved.
The club has hopes to build a trail in Chapman Hill, a new alignment to the Medicine Trail in Horse Gulch that will cross the Milky Way Trail and a new trail in Dalla. The Dalla trail could incorporate the popular features found on the illegal Phoenix Trail, said Mary Monroe Brown, executive director of Trails 2000.
Now that the city has a guiding plan, trails’ decisions will be made by staff members with the approval of the La Plata Open Space Conservancy, which governs some land in some cases.
This should help expedite trail decisions and construction, said Cathy Metz, parks and recreation director.
But boards made a plea for cooperation from the mountain-biking community to propose trail ideas directly to the city or Trails 2000, instead of building rogue routes.
“If both sides give it a chance, I think it can work really well,” said Mark Smith, a member of the Natural Lands Board.
Sandy Burke reminded the crowd that it is the city’s responsibility to serve many trail users and protect wildlife habitat.
“This is just the road map; this isn’t going to be the end,” she said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
