Rocky Mountain Dirt Riders

That is because that is not a legal trail and will be closed off as soon as I can get out there to do so. It is because of that shortcut that the quads are helping themselves to 70s trail. I know because I busted a guy with a quad right at the top.

Yes, there are tons of trails on the ground that are not on the map, on purpose as they are not recognized as legal trails. For a variety or reasons you may find that the tracks from your gps don't perfectly match the trails on the map, but it is a lot of work and expense to publish a new map. None of these differences are intentional nor misleading enough to cause you to get lost. In some cases the input data was of poor quality, other times the route has changed slightly due to blowdown, re-routes, shortcuts, etc.

In 2008 when the trail system was created Dirtboy and myself spent a ton of time making sure the GPS tracks were 100% correct and they were, however there has been several trail re-routes, mostly for sustainability reasons. The club hired the mountain bike boys last year that saw some major re-routes for trails destroyed in the 2013 floods ( and they did an awesome job ), some new signage needs to go up indicating the new route on most of them.
Another thing to consider is when I created the current single track system for SRD there was just over 100 single track trails at that time, I only used 59 of them.
I don't see the map being updated soon, as there is still some major re-routes in the works for McLean.

Hooligan wrote:I wasn't really too worried about minor differences in existing trails. I was more on about entire trails that are not depicted on the map. I have come across at least two others. The one I mentioned was simply the easiest to describe.

Trails that are not designated are simply not on the map. It is illegal to ride on them so why would resources be used to put them on a map?

Looking back, i wish we never mapped any trails

I'm really glad we have a map, I use it frequently and appreciate the immense amount of work that went into it. The Map rocks.

And yes, quad trail poachers suck, particularly the ones that have no problem riding right past (or removing) the no quad signs.

Promoting use of illegal trails would make us no better than them.

One of the major things that was lacking in both the Ghost and Mclean PLUZ roll outs was closures of trails. The signing is less than adequate and the maps, while good, are not that great given the sheer scale of the areas. You can expect to see actual money spent and work going into trail closures with the roll out of the recreational management plans from the SSRP

Hooligan wrote:

erniebearskin wrote:I'm really glad we have a map, I use it frequently and appreciate the immense amount of work that went into it. The Map rocks.

And yes, quad trail poachers suck, particularly the ones that have no problem riding right past (or removing) the no quad signs.

Promoting use of illegal trails would make us no better than them.

Agreed. I love the map and use it extensively along with my GPS.

If the trails I have come across that are not on the map are truly "illegal" then they seem to be very well used in spite of their status.

Seeing that they are used does not mean they are legal trails. It seems many people think this way, however I've learnt a very valuable lesson in life and that is NEVER to ASSUME anything.

If caught on these trails, it is YOUR responsibility to know where you are and what is legal to ride and what isn't. The authorities don't care and you can't use "I assumed" as an excuse.

Another excuse I hear often is "it's a legal trail because so-and-so rides it". Once again, that doesn't meany anything. Everybody is responsible for their own actions.

We have a designated trail system. The signage at the areas says that but perhaps doesn't explain what that means. It means that only trails designated for certain vehicles are allowed to be ridden.

Additionally, the small vehicles are allowed to ride on the wider trails. ie. bikes and atv as well as 4x4 trucks are allowed on designated truck trails. bikes and atv on atv (quad) trails and only motorcycles on bike trails.

The SRD (i mean AEP or government) maps that are available at the Elbow station (maybe McLean store) and the Ghost kiosks have the SRD maps that explain all the rules and regulations. I suggest grabbing one of those maps. The RMDRA maps only really have the names for the motorcycle trails on them but they lack all the rules that the government maps have.

Great point Dirtyboy - the RMDRA map is just for reference and in some ways is better than the SRD map, but in no way is it the "official" map.