[Geysers] Mountain Bikes on Nat'l Park trails

[Bruce Jensen]

My feelings exactly.  Bikes on narrow fotopaths, anything less than fairly wide dirt roads really, do nothing to foster either preservation or appreciation of nature, open the door to damage both incidental and unintentional, and tend to make life riskier for those who choose to take their nature study at a pace that permits greater detail.

I am cyclist and make no mistake - I am thankful that we can get a headstart on trails to places like Shoshone Geyser Basin and Osprey Falls - but that is not an excuse to create miles of new trails to chew up pristine lands or widen wilderness pathways into vehicular freeways.

Not only for Yellowstoen, but for all parks and wilderness areas.

Bruce Jensen

**************
"Until one has loved an animal a part of one's soul remains unawakened"
-Anatole France


--- On Sat, 12/20/08, Udo Freund <gosastore at roadrunner.com> wrote:

> From: Udo Freund <gosastore at roadrunner.com>
> Subject: [Geysers] Mountain Bikes on Nat'l Park trails
> To: "Geyser Observation Reports" <geysers at lists.wallawalla.edu>
> Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 10:36 AM
> The Billings Gaz-bag  ... err, Gazette ...  has an article
> in today's edition about rules changing for mountain
> bikes on trails.  URL:
> http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/12/20/news/wyoming/20-bikes.txt
> Comments anyone?
> 
> I offer a few of my own.  1) Bikes in bear country are a
> bad mix and resultant liability will be an issue.  Hikers
> and trail bikers are almost as bad a mix.  Perhaps signed
> written waivers should be required.  2) Keeping bikes on
> trails is similar to keeping vehicles on designated roads. 
> There will always be a few idiots who will go anywhere they
> want.  Of course they wouldn't care about any damage
> they cause nor would they want to accept responsibility
> (liability again) for that.  3) Bikes do carve ruts in
> trails so who will be financially and physically responsible
> for trail upkeep?  As I understand things, there are limited
> resources for hiking trails, which probably require less
> maintenance.
> 
> Udo
> 
> 
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