That said, how many trails do we have that have legal bypasses? For example. Evans creek at the top of the lower 311 on 'Brake line hill' you have basically three ways to get up. A
Am I wrong about this?
:corn:
You don't actually have 3 ways to get up "brakeline hill. The right side is a relatively BRAND new illegal user built bypass. The original line and still the only legal line I believe is the far left side. The middle line (the rocky climb) is also a user built bypass I believe. I may have those two backwards.
A few years ago I did a ride-along on that trail with the park ranger in my rig. She clarified a LOT of parts of the trail that we thought we just various lines, were in fact illegal routes to take. I spent some time with her complaining that there's no way to know because the trail corridors are NOT marked.
The new right side line is an obvious no no but who would have known that only the left side line was the only legal portion of the trail?
I may get corrected on whether it was the left or middle line that was the legal line - it was a few years ago and I'm old...
However, I am in strong agreement with legal bypasses and Elbe is moving in this direction. Our club worked on the Easywild at the last work party. Following the direction from the DNR, we remarked the entire trail to define the trail corridor. We were able to allow as many of the obvious long term lines to be kept within the trail corridor. We also included some bypasses around more difficult areas that were not only easy but ATV friendly. At the hill climb area of that trail, we kept all lines going up the hill and included them in the trail corridor, but we blocked off off-shoots that had no value at all. We blocked off quite a few illegal entrances to the trail and bypasses where people just decided to go for a run through the trees.
The Dogpound did similar markings on the Swamp Trail.
Better signage will help everyone know where they can and cannot go and then don't complain when the get a ticket for going outside the trail corridor...
Last fall, under the direction of the DNR, we built an entirely new bypass on the busy to go around the deep mud hole section. This summer that bypass will get hardened some to prevent it from eroding into just another trail. Where feasible, you'll see more and more of this at Elbe.
At the last work party, our club also worked on a bypass on the mainline. It was just a water hole but the DNR asked us to MAKE a bypass around the water hole and specified that it must be full size AND ATV friendly.