(Originally in response to Marv's post, in another forum)
JACOBSBURG DESPERATELY NEEDS A TRAIL INTERVENTION!
As you know, there's a history of maintenance there with VMB and an even longer one with the Chain Gang. Years ago, I was the club's liaison with the park manager. After me, it was Terry Miller.
Here's my best guess on how I think things ended up in the current situation:
Many volunteers from the MTB community tired of showing up for trail days there to spread those blue screenings on the trails. (The method of maintenance preferred by the park.) Many felt that this amounted to paved trails.
So, no trail days are scheduled...
Meanwhile, JBurg continues to see increased traffic by several "user groups." The land manager, having limited staff, resorts to using large pieces of power equipment to remediate severe erosion problems. This accomplishes a lot in a little time but results in ten-foot-wide trails.
I know some folks think this might be what the park actually wants and that they're not interested in having challenging, mountain bike trails -- they prefer family friendly or "safe" paths.
I'd like to think that with some bridge building and the right liaison the MTB community could still turn that place around.
The bottom line is the park lost a large portion of volunteers with their choice of method/design. This is actually quite interesting. Think about it! What other sport/recreation do you know of where 15-20 people will show up on the weekend with picks and shovels and bust their asses for four hours?
So we've arrived at the current Catch 22 situation.
Nobody wants to show up for maintenance, but everybody hates what's happening in our absence.
Nobody wants to shovel blue screenings and dumb-down the trails -- yet a bunch of us still show up to ride there. It's convenient and fast as hell on a singlespeed.
At one time we talked about possibly having the IMBA Trail Care Crew visit and see if we couldn't come up with a better ideas for the park. I believe this is worth consideration. If we ever get IMBA out here again, I feel strongly that Jacobsburg should be at the top of the list.
Jacobsburg is still such a beautiful place -- worthy of properly maintained trails. A maintenance plan that preserves the sense of a nature experience -- in other words -- not "paving" them.
The current situation is just a shame.
It seems that we should be able to figure out a mutually acceptable plan.
Sorry for the novella!
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Say hi to me on the trail, dammit! 