Trail building is a tricky business.  Thanks to Rob Hehlen for offering to share the ins and outs of trail building.

The Art of Trailbuilding on Public Lands

By Rob Hehlen

     Shortly after my first fat-tire ride on singletrack, I became interested in finding new trails.  Like most of you out there, what I discovered was the gamut between well trodden trails and those more like javelina tracks.  I’d ride trails so thick with brush I was dreaming of saw blades attached to my front axle and come to intersections with no markings causing me to curse the Forest Service for allowing such horrendous maintenance and management. 

    Through a friend in the Prescott Cycling Club I was introduced to the ‘Over the Hill Gang,’ a group of mainly retired (or out of work in the case of my friend) folks who spent a half day each week building new trails.  At the time they were working on a section of the Prescott Circle Trail; A discovery that would change my life for the foreseeable future.  This project inspired me to apply for a job at the Forest Service to try and help move the project along.  Amazingly, they hired me as a 6 month seasonal trail technician (grunt).  Not to make this a novel here’s the low down on trails:

    The first thing I discovered was that there are two types of trails – system and social.  All those unmarked intersections were beginning to make sense.  The Forest Service only marks and maintains trails on their system.  So how did they choose which trails to put on their system?  Why are some system trails the scum of the earth, while some social trails far better?  Well, just like much of Interstate 84 is the Oregon Trail that brought thousands of pioneers west, most trails on the forest were old established routes to get somewhere.  Usually a pack trail, an old cattle drive trail or a way to get to the hundreds of mining camps.  They weren’t concerned about erosion, flowing twisty singletrack, but the shortest route from point A to B.  For the most part, these make lousy trails, here’s why:

A trail that goes straight down a hill becomes a creek bed.  Putting log water bars across these trails makes them a creek bed with waterfalls.  If water cannot drain off of a trail, the trail becomes the waterway.  This is true even if the trail goes along a side hill but has no way to ‘dump’ water.  So, many of the original trails on the forest weren’t ‘built’, but adopted, and create an maintenance nightmare.

    Social trails aren’t much different.  Unless one plans to do a lot of work, it’s much easier to follow the path of least resistance.  This might be straight up (or down) a drainage – the water’s already done the work for us.  In the woods, they meander around every tree, plant, rock – you name it.  Almost every social trail that has gotten adopted into the trail system, has needed many re-routes.  Such is the case behind White Spar  Campground.

    The second thing I discovered working at the Forest Service was that there was more to building a trail than taking a pick and McLeod to the dirt.  There’s a PROCESS (it is the federal government after all).   This process is called NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act).  That means  any activity that may have an environmental or SOCIAL impact has to be analyzed for possible significant impacts.  This is a lengthy and somewhat expensive process.  That said, the project has to merit such an endeavor.  Lucky for me, the Goldwater Lakes 396 trail was part of a NEPA that was completed in 1999.  Being such, I was given permission by my supervisor to flag a proposed alignment taking that document into consideration.  After the flagged route was approved, the forest archeologist had to survey it to make sure there weren’t any significant historical or pre-historic cultural sites along the way.  After all that, construction could begin.  Thank God the NEPA was already done!

    So, you say, screw that.  If I wait for that, my wife will get transferred to Wichita and I’ll have to ride wheat fields the rest of my life.  I’ll just go out and build me a social trail.  Here’s the Catch 22 – it’s legal to travel cross country on the forest (non-motorized), however, it’s very illegal to build a trail on the forest.  Huh???  Aren’t they one and the same???  No.  It’s true if you travel cross country on the same route enough times it will be come some sort of a trail.  Go near any camp that has horses and social trails flourish.  It only takes one group of half dozen horses to ‘create’ a trail.  And bad trails cause resource damage.  More bad trails, more damage.  The ‘process’ is long, but in the end worth it.  The 396 and many other new trails are proof of that.

    Now knowing what it takes to get trails on the system, I spent a few months coming up with a plan to finish the Circle Trail as a non-motorized trail system (many parts right now are motorized) and add a few social gems to the system as well (Feldmire, Fireplace Springs, Spence Springs/Emmanuel Pines).  After six months of campaigning, I got the District Ranger to go for the project, unfortunately without the social trail aspect.  It’s going through the ‘process’ now and hopefully will be done Spring 09. The big problem is that the Forest Service has so many existing trails it can’t maintain and so it really looks seriously at any new project.

    Although I no longer work for the Forest Service, my time there was eye opening.  You see, the Forest Service is understaffed and under funded when it comes to trails.  There are 850 miles of trails on the Prescott National Forest and 1 ½ paid staff to deal with them.  It takes 5 people half a day to maintain 2 miles of trail, which needs to be done at least twice a year.  That’s almost 10,000 hours needed just for basic maintenance!  They really need our help.

    So how can you help???  First, if you are going to volunteer, be serious about it.  Nothing worse than signing a group up to adopt a trail, then they never show up to work on it.  Second, get a group together and adopt a trail.  If our trail system is well maintained, the Forest Service will more likely to look at new trail projects.  Third, find an IMBA workshop and learn about trail construction.  Knowledge is enlightening.

    My goal is to come up with a master trail plan that will incorporate the best existing trails, add in quality social trails and build new trails to create loops and connectivity from on area to another.  In doing this, the plan would also drop unused trail leading nowhere.  Then portions of the plan could be implemented as time and funding allowed.  It will take time though, probably decades - but won’t it be sweet!