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Back Country Horsemen of Central Arizona

3 weeks ago

Forest Service and Trail User Groups Ask Visitors to Help
Prevent Damage to Trails during Monsoon Season
Prescott, AZ (July 25, 2017) -
With recent monsoon rains, many trails in the area will be wet and highly susceptible to long-term damage until they dry out. Please consider the damage you could cause to trails when planning your visits after heavy precipitation. This advice applies to all user groups, both motorized and non-motorized, for roads and trails. All users have the ability to cause damage to trail surfaces and corridors; the impact varies from user to user. For example, horses or mules will leave large post holes in the trail tread, making it difficult to ride or hike when soils dry. Post holes also dislodge soil and increases erosion. Mountain bikes leave ruts which also make trail use difficult for hikers and other bikers; more importantly those ruts funnel water, allowing it to speed up and take more soil downhill, increasing erosion and rutting. Often trail users try to avoid the wet or muddy spots by moving off the trail, but this can widen the trail significantly as an unintended and harmful consequence. Motorized vehicles have similar impacts and damage to trail treads caused by use during wet conditions and can change a great trail into a very difficult or unrideable trail.
Please be considerate of the environment and other users by planning accordingly. Granite Basin and Williamson Valley trails are especially susceptible to wet conditions due to the clay soils and should be avoided when wet, as well as most sections of the Prescott Circle Trail. By contrast, trails in the Thumb Butte area dry out quicker than most, and the Spruce Mountain area is more resistant to impact during wet conditions. Trail volunteers have put a tremendous amount of work in to build and maintain these trails; please do your part by planning your destination around drier trails or rocky forest roads.
The Prescott National Forest and the Prescott Trail Safety Coalition hope to develop website that has a rating system for wet trails similar to the fire danger rating system in the future. Until then, please use common sense and courtesy when you venture out to potentially wet trails. Please turn around if you think you will cause damage.
Trail users can obtain additional information via the following:
• • Prescott NF Forest Website: www.fs.usda.gov/prescott/
• • Prescott Trail Safety Coalition: ptsc-2011.blogspot.com/
• • City of Prescott: www.prescott-az.gov/services/parks/trails/ ... See MoreSee Less