It's getting to be that time of year again. Yeah, I know it's only February and I am making this announcement. The reason is that today it's supposed to get up to 31 degrees, maybe higher. As far as the forecast goes it's showing highs in the low, mid, and upper 30's for a week. Starting in about mid February, the temps tend to start rising and spring warm up starts to happen. That's not to say we won't have any more freezing cold days or a stretch of cold, but in general, the warm up is on it's way. Because of this I have to get our annual reminder out. So here it goes.....
Please do not ride the trails during these warmer periods. I know, it's not fun and you want to ride. But riding during these late winter and early spring warm ups, especially as the snow thins and dirt gets exposed, is when the most damage is done to our trails, the trails we all love and enjoy riding. The last few years we have had people ride during spring thaw quite a bit, even after we put up orange fence to close the main entrances. This has caused us to do months of extra trailwork to repair all the damage. We have to repair it or drainage will not work properly during the rainfalls in the summer months. This is about 1 1/2 months of other work our trailworkers could be doing to improve the trail and this year we would like our trailworkers to be working on our new advanced section (section 6) in the North East part of the trails. If we can get an early start on section 6 this year, we can possibly open the 1st half of the advanced section by mid summer. But if our crews are having to fix the existing trail due to damage caused by riders riding wet and muddy trail.....we may not get section 6 open this year or at least not until late in the season.
So please....please keep an eye on the MORC forums trail conditions thread and on our home page trail conditions in the upper left corner before you go ride. We provide these tools for you to use and to give you the latest updates on Theodore Wirth.
Expect that the trails could be closed from now until late April or Early May....unless we have a dry and warm spring. Also, please educate fellow bikers. These trails belong to all of us who ride them and it is up to all of us to educate others on proper trail etiquette. The MOCA trail crew is spread too thin to be able to do it all on their own. So please help us spread the word and keep our trails in great shape for the warmer spring and summer months!
Thank you!
