| Temperatures are rising here in our backyard. While local riding might be curtailed for a few sweltering weeks, TASU isn’t slowing down on new projects.New trails, new trailheads, new maintenance programs and new board members. All in support of our mission to create, enhance and protect world-class recreational trail experiences for mountain bikers and other trail enthusiasts in the Southern Utah region. Read (or watch) the latest updates from TASU President Kevin Christopherson. I’m Kevin Christopherson, I’m the president of the Trail Alliance of Southern Utah. And it’s time for an annual update. You know, it’s going to be a good year when you have to make notes.And this has been ten years in the making. So it’s kind of fun to see this all coming together after a lot of hard work by a lot of people. New Trails and Trailheads So I’ll jump right into what everybody’s interested in right off the top. And that’s the new trails that are coming. The Cliff Rose trail network is going to get another 20 miles this year. They’re up there working now. They’ll probably get about half of that built this year. And then, depending on the winter, and when they get snowed out, they’ll probably finish up next year. So that’s pretty exciting. There’s going to be 20 miles total, and it’s about half cross-country stuff and about half downhill stuff. And this one will actually take you all the way to the top, To the Blake Gubler trailhead for people who know where that is. The top section will be two-way, so you’ll be able to ride up from the bottom and come down. Combine that with existing trails, and you’ll be able to ride all the way back to Green Springs Drive. We’re talking probably 20 miles of downhill trail. So that’ll be kind of cool. And then we’re also getting the trailhead. In fact, they’ve started the survey work up there, the contractors are on site. It’s going to be a very large trailhead with a double restroom. And then there will be a big area cleared as well. That’s going to be for events, event parking and overflow parking. We also have 20 miles approved on the other side of the mountain of Pine Valley, over by Pine Valley Town. But that one’s not been funded yet, so we’ll see how that goes. And at Hell Hole, same thing. We’ve got some more funding and are moving forward there. We’re adding an expert trail to go along with the Hell Hole downhill. They’ll start from the same upper parking area as the Hell Hole, and they’ll both end up down at the Revenant trailhead. That probably won’t start until fall, hopefully early rather than later. So there again, depending on weather conditions, it might be done this fall and winter or might have to finish up next spring. We’ve also got approval up there for actually quite a few trails. We’re hoping to get a climbing trail all the way from the bottom to the top. And some other smaller loops, but we’ll just have to see how far the money will go. Hopefully, we can get most of that done. I know I’ve had a lot of requests for the climbing trail from people and the expert downhill. So those are kind of our priority. And then whatever’s left over, if any, will work on some of the trails, and there’s going to be some volunteer opportunities there, too. I’m kind of waiting to get the final approval on the final alignments for some of the trails. So the Revenant is getting a new trailhead as well, and this is going to be that same parking area that we’re at now. It’ll be about 25% larger and there’ll be a restroom. So that’ll be pretty cool. Guacamole is getting a trailhead too. I don’t know if that’s going to happen this year or not. It’s been approved. I’m not sure where that’s at with the funding. Wire Mesa is going to get their trailhead, with the restroom. They’re going to expand the parking there and put in a restroom, which is really needed. Restrooms aren’t as exciting as trails, but they’re desperately needed. And we worked a long time to make that all happen. And then I think I’ll talk about a few things that really aren’t ours, but still bike-related. You know, the new Wheels Park in Washington has been a huge success. And that’s kind of fun for people. I’ve not been out there myself since they finished it, but I’ve seen videos and man, the kids are loving it. That thing is really popular. Also, there’s a new NICA course coming in, and Washington County funded that. For those of you who know the area, it’s out by Desert Colors, kind of up by the new Costco. And so there’ll be like a seven-mile loop there with a lot of parking for NICA races. So that’s kind of fun too. New Board Members We’ve got three new board members, and I don’t know if they want me to put their names out on the internet, but I’m very excited about them. I mean, we’re lucky to get people. We’ve had such good people on the board, and it’s an all-volunteer board. And it takes a lot of time and effort. We really appreciate these new people coming on board. And they’re bringing a whole set of skill sets. We’ve got people with engineering backgrounds, soils and government relations. So there really are not only dedicated bikers, but they have some skills that’ll be really useful with us going forward. And so I’m excited about that. We’ll introduce them formally in the near future. Trail Maintenance We’ve been working on this for a while now. The goal is to get a formal maintenance program funded where we actually have paid crews come into work. And that’s getting close. I think it’s going to happen. Probably not till fall. We haven’t signed any contracts yet. We’re still working out the details. But, it looks like at least for this first year, we’re going to get funding to do that, and we’re going to focus for the first year on the Prospector/Church Rocks trails. They’re close to town and a lot of people use them, so they’ll see the benefit of that right away. So that’s going to be our first project, just to kind of get our feet wet. Hopefully we can spend that in a bigger program. It’s really something that’s needed with the, you know, with the hundreds of thousands of people we have that come in here to ride bikes. So we’re excited about that. That’s one that’s been needed for a long time, and I think it’s going to happen. Stay tuned. We’ve got a new program, the Pay It Forward program. We’ll just leave some rakes along the trail. And the idea is if you come along and see those rakes, just pull over and rake 20 or 30 feet and take a picture and post it on social media. We might have a monthly giveaway, and then at the end of the year, maybe some bigger prizes for the, you know, the people who did the most work or the funniest, the funniest videos or whatever it is. So I’m optimistic about that one. I mean, I know people like that like to help, but it’s hard. Like a lot of our volunteer projects have to be on Saturdays and people have soccer games with their kids and cheerleader practice and all kinds of things. So I know that full on trail days are hard for people, so this gives people the chance to just stop and, and, and rake off some rocks. And if we can get people to do that, just kind of I think the idea is, you know, like in the downhill trail, you just kind of move it forward as you go down. And then when it gets to the bottom, we’ll haul it back to the top again. Thank Yous You know, these things take a lot of partners, and I just. I feel like I need to thank people that’s, you know, not very exciting either. But, without the BLM and the Forest Service and the Utah outdoor recreation program and the county support, none of this would have happened. And, of course, all of you who’ve donated to us or bought a T-shirt or even just written a letter of support, that all made it happen. I mean, none of this would happen without all those people. And you can imagine it’s not easy to bring those groups together and make it happen, but everybody kind of did what they had to do to make it work. And that’s why I want to thank everybody. It’s been a fun process. |
