Salida Mountain Trails (SMT) requests volunteer assistance for the trail workday & lunch on Saturday, April 10th, 2010. Meet at 9:00AM at the Kiosk near the Spiral Drive gate.

Trail work will consist of trail construction and maintenance around “S” Mountain. After the trail work is completed, the trail crew will regroup at about 2:00pm behind Absolute Bikes and The Salida Cafe to enjoy food, drink, and conversation.

Please come equipped with heavy work or hiking shoes – preferably high tops, work gloves, water, snacks, and sunscreen.

We’re in the midst of our 2010 membership drive. Bringing $25 for your SMT 2010 Membership would be much appreciated.

SMT is involved in creating the Arkansas Hills Trail System for the enjoyment of residents and visitors in the community of Salida.

Check out the SMT website for more information: http://www.salidamountaintrails.org/.

Salida Mountain Trails (SMT) requests volunteer assistance for the trail workday and lunch on Saturday, November 14th, 2009.

This is one of the regular second-Saturday of the month Shindig schedule.

If you cannot make the Shindig this Saturday, there are opportunities to help. SMT has regularly scheduled workdays every Saturday. Meet at 9:00am at the Spiral Drive Gate parking area for Saturday workdays.

For the coming Shindig, SMT will meet at the Spiral Drive Gate parking area on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 9:00am.

Trail work will consist of new construction around “S” Mountain. After the trail work is completed, the trail crew will regroup at about 2:00pm behind Absolute Bikes at the Salida Cafe and Roastery to enjoy food, drink, and conversation.

Please come equipped with heavy work or hiking shoes – preferably high tops, work gloves, water, snacks, and sunscreen.

SMT is involved in creating the Arkansas Hills Trail System for the enjoyment of residents and visitors in the community of Salida.

Check out the SMT website for more information: http://www.salidamountaintrails.org/.

Salida Mountain Trails members, with the support of the City of Salida, have been working hard in recent months to construct a number of new trails.  The trails are being constructed on City and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands as part of the recently completed BLM travel management plan.

A ribbon cutting will be held at 2:00 p.m. at the new trailhead kiosk near the gate on Tenderfoot Mountain.  This will be followed with a demonstration of the mini-excavator purchased by the City to facilitate the construction of new trails.  Volunteers from Salida Mountain Trails will then offer a guided hike along the recently constructed Lil’ Rattler Trail.

A trail run will depart from the F Street Bridge at 9:00 a.m. and a mountain bike ride will begin at the Tenderfoot gate at 3:00 p.m.  All three activities will be guided by volunteers from Salida Mountain Trails who can explain the routes, sustainable trail building techniques, volunteer opportunities and plans for future trail construction.

Attendees of the ribbon cutting and hike are encouraged to walk or carpool to the gate on Tenderfoot due to limited parking.

This event is a membership drive and fundraiser for the non-profit Salida Mountain Trails.  Volunteers will be on hand to sign up new members and sell raffle tickets in support of the trail-building efforts.  FIBArk, Absolute Bikes and Keen Footwear will offer prizes for the fundraiser.

If you can not make it to the on-trail activities, join Salida Mountain Trails at the Boathouse Cantina, 228 N F Street, at 4:00 p.m.  Beer available for participants brought to you by New Belgium Brewing while supplies last.  Raffle results will also be announced at the Boathouse Cantina.

The new trails will be featured during the New Belgium FIBArk festival as part of the Sunday 10K Trail Run and the new mountain bike event on June 21st.

Volunteers have been working since last fall on building new trails.  Absolute Bikes has provided tremendous support in these efforts by allowing staff to devote many paid hours to this project.  The City of Salida provided additional support through the use of voter-approved 2B occupational lodging tax funds.  Funds were used for the purchase of a mini-excavator trail building machine.  The City also employed youth through the Southwest Conservation Corps (SCC) for six weeks of trail building efforts.  The SCC completes their time on this project on May 14th.
Contact Dara MacDonald or Shawn Gillis for additional information

Saturday the crew created about 800 feet of new singletrack trail, extending Tenderfoot Trail to connect with Backbone Trail. After the day’s work was done, the crew regrouped at Absolute Bikes to enjoy a social BBQ where they indulged in food,
beverage, and conversation.

Volunteers with Salida Mountain Trails build trail in February

The Arkansas Hills Trail System is a stacked loop network of multi-use trails that can be used by residents and visitors in the community of Salida. A “stacked loop” system provides opportunities from easy to difficult, with nearby easier trails leading outwards to more challenging loops.

Since trail work began in 2006, SMT staff and volunteers have completed 9,000 feet of trail. SMT hosts monthly “Shindigs” – “trailwork-plus-a-party” barbecues – every second Saturday of each month (Saturday March 14th is the next Shindig). Meet at the Spiral Drive Gate at 8:30 AM on Shindig days to volunteer. Additionally, there are “Weekly Trail Crew” days every Wednesday and Saturday every week.

Meet at 9:00 AM on those days to join in the work. More specific details are available, but you can also contact Eric Tauer for more information.

Monthly “shindigs”

These are our “trailwork-plus-a-party” barbecues, every second Saturday of the month. They’re a great introduction to trailbuilding and SMT trail projects. We do a brief tool safety talk at 8:30 am, hike out to the worksite at 9 am to build trail for a few hours, and typically regroup at 2 pm for a BBQ social behind Absolute Bikes and Bongo Billy’s.

Weekly trail crew

Have a couple hours here and there that you’d like to devote to building your very own trail system? The SMT regular “irregulars” are currently meeting at The Gate trailhead on Spiral Drive each Wednesday and Saturday at 9 am. The work may be anything from new tread construction to revegetation, finish work, or rock work. Dig all day or just an hour – we’ll bring some extra tools to share!

What to bring

SMT will supply tools and hard hats. We recommend that you bring plenty of water, sunscreen, clothing appropriate for working in the weather (a rain jacket can be nice to have), and work gloves. One thing you really should have is sturdy boots – there are cactus and rocks galore up there. Long pants are nice for keeping dirt out of your footwear, too. It’s a good idea to bring some snacks; on Shindig days SMT will provide the post-trailwork lunch.

Questions may be directed to andrew@salidamountaintrails.org. We look forward to digging with you!

We’ve been working with the BLM since they started the Arkansas River TMP in 2004. Our trails master plan is part of it, and now that it’s been implemented we are good to go! Check out some of our new projects, and then go up there and see them for yourself!

Along the slopes of S-Mountain, up Ute Trail, down Deadhorse and Cottonwood Gulches is an area literally in Salida’s back yard. Trail runners, cyclists, hikers, and dog walkers know that there’s treasure within minutes of downtown Salida.

Between Dead Goat Gulch and Longfellow Gulch north of downtown Salida is arid, rugged public land. The sandy, rocky soil that grows thin, tough vegetation makes the area perfect for trails. The soil drains well, and the terrain makes for interesting trail routes. And since this area is on the warm side of the Arkansas Valley, much of the land stays relatively warm and snow-free during the winter.

Many Salidans already love this area, and use the trails that exist on a daily basis. Why change anything at all? Why not simply work the existing trails into the new BLM BLM Travel Management Plan and continue using them as always? Because the trails are too steep, rocky, and difficult for many trail users, and it can be difficult to find trails and trail junctions since there are no signs and few “official” routes. The existing trails do not form a trail system.

We would like to plan and build a system of concentric loop trails. Options for easy, moderate, or more difficult trail routes will be available from two or more starting places. There will be maps, marked intersections, interpretive signs, and hopefully restrooms and a camping area.

Why have a Trails Park?

We’re proud of Salida. It’s a friendly, pretty little town surrounded by some of the most beautiful country found in the Rocky Mountains. We celebrated our town’s riverfront a few years ago by cleaning it up, building a whitewater park, and making the banks of the Arkansas into a place everyone, boaters and non-boaters, could enjoy.

A few hundred feet from the River Park, there is one gravel road and one singletrack trail that can be used to access miles and miles of beautiful public land. You have to know where to look for the singletrack trail to use it. The road is fine, but you have to watch for motor vehicles and you have to make your way past short hill-climb side-roads, trash, and broken glass to get to the natural public land.

People in Salida could not imagine seeing someone dump trash along the river, but that was common practice not so many years ago. The whitewater park is a source of civic pride. It would be unthinkable to degrade it. If we treat our close-in public land as a source of pride, a park, it will become unthinkable for people to dump trash, drive vehicles off the track, or otherwise degrade it. This will be a place to bring children and grandchildren for a walk or a bike ride. It will be a place to send visitors where we know they’ll find the trail and get to explore the land we love and cherish.

Volunteers get orientation from Andrew Mesesan

The morning was chilly, which probably made it difficult for volunteers to show up, but within minutes the extra clothing was not needed. The consensus was that the day’s temperature was perfect for trail-building.

Workers buffing out a nice section of trail

This addition to Salida’s local trail network will be usable right away since we were able to connect to an existing trail in two places. The trail we connected to is quite steep and this new section gives trail users a longer, more meandering option.

Another view of Salida and Ouray & Chipeta

This section of the Backbone Trail gives trail users a view of the Tenderfoot Trail, completed by Salida Mountain Trails with the help of volunteers in April of 2006. Also visible is the top of Tenderfoot Hill, much of Salida, and the Sawatch Range to the west.

We hope the community will get out and start enjoying the new trail section right away. Thanks again to our volunteers. We’ll be publishing the dates of our monthly volunteer days soon so that everyone who wants can be involved.

The new trail, tentatively being called Little Rattler, is meant for non-motorized users: walkers, trail runners, and mountain bikers. In April of 2006, with the help of a huge group of volunteers, we built the trail that leaves Spiral Drive on the southeast side of Tenderfoot as the road makes its first trip around. We have been calling this trail Tenderfoot Trail. 

Salida Mountain Trails has an agreement with the City of Salida to develop trail resources on City-owned land around Tenderfoot. As part of our agreement, we have developed a plan to manage the open space around Tenderfoot.

One of the assertions that we made when analyzing this area is that it has a very high density of trails and double-track routes. Social trails, those trails that are made by people as they simply run, walk, or ride from place to place, are prolific. Tracks made by four-wheel-drives and OHVs (off-highway vehicles) including steep hill climbs are very common.

Often when we design a new trail it is planned to be a replacement for one or more existing trails. Trail closure can be unpopular, and since we wish to serve and represent trail users in Salida, we want to be open to public feedback regarding trail closure and other land management policies. 

A key principle that Salida Mountain Trails brought to our role as land management consultants is that erosion is a large problem on public land in our area. Vegetation tends to be spare and fragile given the aridity of the area. Soils tend to be sandy and rocky. Salida Mountain Trails’ trail development philosophy is based on the assumption that trails can be built in a way that avoids erosion. Erosion can be avoided almost completely if trails are routed in a way that avoids following the fall line (the straightest way up/down the hill).

There can be conflicting opinions about trail design and trail resource management as a result of this assertion that fall-line trails should be avoided. Some trail users like the challenge and exercise involved in hiking or running on steep trails. Some trail users simply want to take the shortest path from point A to point B, and often this path is straight up the hill. Sustainable, non-erosive trails tend to follow contours. This means that they tend to meander around, following land features. They can be relatively steep, but a fall line trail is the steepest possible, by definition.

A key assumption that has driven the existence of Salida Mountain Trails since we formed early in 2004 is that Salida has a high demand for trails. Our desire has been to build more miles of trails, to meet the demand for trails in a sustainable, environmentally responsible way. When demand is not satisfied, trails will be built. Some of them will be built in a sustainable way, others will be new sources of erosion, and will become less usable and desirable following every thunderstorm and snow melt.

Salida Mountain Trails seeks to serve and represent all trails users and land stakeholders. If there is demand for steeper, more rugged trails, we will work to produce trails of that type using the design principles that make a trail sustainable and non-erosive. Our plan calls for a trail system based on the stacked loop concept; shorter, easier and less-steep trails are found nearer the trailhead (the bottom of the stack). As you move further from the trailhead (further up the stack) trails become more difficult and longer.

We want to be open to feedback and responsive when possible, but please keep in mind that we also have a responsibility to care for the land and satisfy demand for trails in a manner that is as sustainable as possible. Please send us your feedback through http://salidamountaintrails.org/contactus.php. You will be able to send your message anonymously if you choose. But either way, please send feedback if you have it. We want to hear from you if you have something to say.

More than 100 volunteers are expected to come together on the Monarch Crest trail, outside of Salida, CO, on September 27, to celebrate National Public Lands Day. The effort will provide much needed attention to Monarch Pass, one of the most popular sections of the Continental Divide Trail National Scenic Trail. This section of the trail offers more than 30 miles of incredible mountain scenery.

The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA), Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA), U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and Salida Mountain Trails group are partnering to coordinate this massive volunteer effort on the Crest. They expect to draw from a diverse group of volunteers from the Arkansas Valley, as well as the Colorado Front Range. The project will focus on maintaining and restoring the trail, which traverses the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains – often well above treeline – in the San Isabel and Gunnison National Forests.

Saturday’s trailwork day will be followed by an evening festival. On Sunday, volunteers will have the opportunity to experience the Monarch Crest trail, which is one of the country’s premier mountain bike rides. IMBA recently designated the Monarch Crest as an Epic.

The mountain biking culture here has traditionally been a bit more underground than it is in many of the other mountain towns in Colorado. The riders here have tended to do what they do, not drawing attention to the places they ride, forming clubs, or putting on festivals. But times are changing.

Plans to create a network of trails easily accessible from downtown Salida took one step further down the path when Salida City Council recently approved construction of a new trail on S Mountain.

The new trail will create a short loop connection to the existing Tenderfoot Trail. When finished, the loop will take most mountain bikers 35 – 45 minutes to complete the ride. “This is all part of a bigger plan to have trails that start downtown and lead up to public land,” said Tom Purvis, Director of Salida Mountain Trails.

The group’s long-range plan is to build a system of concentric loop trails on public lands surrounding Salida which, in addition to the slopes of Tenderfoot Mountain, would go up Ute Trail and down Deadhorse and Cottonwood Gulches. North of town, between Dead Goat and Longfellow Gulches is another area or rugged public land perfect for year-round trails. Options for easy, moderate, or more difficult trail routes will be available from several starting places. There will be maps, marked intersections, interpretive signs, and hopefully restrooms and a camping area.

The new trail will rely on volunteer help for construction. It is expected to be complete by the end of June. To volunteer for the trail project, contact Tom Purvis at tpurvis@arkansasvalley.net