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Old February 27th 18, 04:49 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
John B.[_3_]
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Posts: 5,697
Default Equestrians destroying trails in Wilder Ranch State Park.

On Mon, 26 Feb 2018 18:36:20 -0800, sms
wrote:

Yesterday I was at Wilder Ranch State Park north of Santa Cruz.

The park puts up signs that after a rain the trails should not be used
because when you use a muddy trail and then the mud dries the trails are
full of holes from horse's hoofs and hiker's boots, and ruts from
mountain bicycle tires.

The trails yesterday were miserable. Full of holes from horse's hooves.
But amazingly, there were no ruts from bicycle tires. I inquired as to
the reason? "Mountain bikers are much more responsible than equestrians
when it comes to staying off dirt trails after a rain. They obey the
posted signs while many equestrians ignore them, and it only takes a
couple of horses to wreck a trail. But also, it's not fun to ride a
mountain bike in the mud or hike in the mud, especially with all the
horse poop, so it's self-enforcing for those users, but equestrians
don't mind riding in the mud because they are not going to get dirty."

The holes in the trail, and all the excrement will remain until the next
heavy rain, then the mud and poop will flow and fill the holes, and the
smooth dirt will once again be wrecked by equestrians that don't wait
until the dirt is hard before riding.

Time to ban equestrians from our state parks--they make a mess of the
trails and make it miserable for self-powered trail users, who are the
legitimate park users. Banning equestrians would be no different than
banning motorized off-road vehicles.

Horses are the antithesis of "Leave No Trace." Bringing a huge beast
into a pristine area, contaminating water, leaving piles of excrement
everywhere, and destroying trails is NOT what normal trail users desire.
Horses belong on private land, not in national forests and not in state,
county, or national parks.

Does anyone remember that deranged guy that attacked some mountain
bikers near Berkeley and ended up spending some time in jail--even
though the felony charge was dropped he still was either convicted of,
or plead to, misdemeanor charges. I recall that one of his supporters
was a big horse proponent.


I think that you are talking about Mike Vandeman who was alleged to
have struck a cyclist with a saw cutting him across the chest.

I don't remember a "big horse" proponent being a supporter but I do
remember a news article that stated that before mountain bikes one of
Mike's fetishes was that bulldozers were bad.... because they kill
snakes :-)

By the way, Vandeman's first trial had to be cancelled as it was said
that over overly prejudicial testimony by a mountain biker compromised
the jury and caused a mistrial after two witnesses. Ultimately all
charges were dropped.

--
Cheers,

John B.

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