Trail News
2006 Year in Review – State of Our Trails
CARL BARTON JR. PARK – CONROE
We established a new trail at Carl Barton Jr. Park in Conroe, working under a new volunteer agreement with the City of Conroe. Work commenced in June when when the inaugural 3 mile section was laid out to IMBA standards by the Bike Texas Trail Docs (Ryan Spates and Susan Stormer). Construction took place in August when the Trail Docs gave a 2 day trail-building clinic, which was attended by Park employees, cyclists and other volunteers. Work is continuing under the energetic leadership of trail steward Gary Rogers and about 2 miles of trail are now complete. Gary is working hard to complete the 3 mile section and have it ready to ride in the New Year.
SPRING CREEK GREENWAY
This project is a joint venture between Harris and Montgomery Counties and The Woodlands Development Company. We recognized that there are tremendous opportunities for new trails along this project and the time is right to start working with the project directors, particularly as The Woodlands announced their preliminary plans for Creekside Park. Ultimately, the SCGP will be a greenway running from Tomball to Kingwood and up the lower 7 miles of Cypress Creek – about 15,000 acres of land in total, with several areas suitable for some cool trails.
GHORBA recognized that the workload for advocacy was becoming too great and so we have developed a new system where, instead of appointing an individual as a Trail Steward, we’re using an entire club – the Woodlands Cycling Club (WCC). In May, GHORBA arranged a kick-off meeting with key players on the Spring Creek Greenway Project (SCGP), members of WCC, GHORBA and the Texas Trail Docs to introduce the project to the resources we cyclists have and to introduce the WCC as our advocacy group.
Following on from the successful meeting, the Trail Docs held a Trail Building Clinic at Montgomery County Preserve in July, during which a short new trail was built in the preserve. This clinic was more geared for the needs of the Legacy Land Trust and their team of Master Naturalists, but it was also attended by a few WCC cyclists and also by the Chair of the Houston chapter of the Sierra Club and her husband.
Jim Davis is taking the lead on this project for the WCC.
This will be a work in progress for several years to come, but the great thing is that we are in the right place at the right time and Jim and WCC are already off to a flying start!
ROY C BURROUGHS PARK
Following on from the Spring Creek Greenway project, we took another look at Roy C Burroughs Park (RCB) which lies on the northern border of Harris County, east of Tomball and is also the western terminus of the Spring Creek Greenway Project. We have received permission from Harris County Precinct 4 to build new singletrack in this 320 acre park. The idea here is that we can use this as a demonstration project and be ready to head off downstream on Spring Creek into the new Creekside Park. But, if you take a look at RCB, you’ll see that this park has the potential to be a sweet trail all by itself. New GHORBA board member Bill Begnaud has volunteered to be the trail steward and he has surveyed the entire property (assisted by the GPS skills of Chet Fielden) and in early December we engaged the services of Ryan Spates and Susan Stormer (now working for Talon Trails) to commence marking the new trails.
LONE STAR TRAIL
A major effort was undertaken on the advocacy front recently to work with other user groups to make the Lone Star Hiking Trail multi-use; in other words, allow bicycle access on this magnificent 129 mile trail system in the Sam Houston National Forest. We thought that we were going to succeed, and certainly the U.S. Forest Service supported us in this effort, but ultimately, the two principal current user groups, the Lone Star Trail Hiking Club and the Houston Sierra Club were not ready for this change and they opposed us, so the effort failed – for now. But, the writing is on the wall and we think that with continued effort to work together with environmental groups, we will change their minds. Every cloud has a silver lining though, and through this effort we greatly enhanced our working relationship with the U.S. Forest Service and we are now working with the LSTHC and with the Sierra Club on other projects. Also, an old project to expand trails at Double Lake Recreation area and in the SHNF to the south of Double Lake was resurrected. DL trail steward, Robert Patrick and Jim Mackey are working on surveying new routes and opportunities in the Double Lake area. The goal is to have new trail ready in time for our TMBRA race next spring and then keep expanding from there – 50 miles of new trail is the ultimate goal!
GREENS BAYOU
Another new project at which we did not immediately succeed is the Greens Bayou Trail. Phil Niccum and volunteers mapped the area and we arranged a meeting with Precinct 1 Parks Department, Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) in August to discuss establishing a new park on a large tract of land owned by HCFCD. Ryan Spates also attended. Unfortunately, Precinct 1 were unable to proceed with the project, since they could not budget funding, even though it would be free land and a volunteer agreement for trail maintenance. However, we still hope to achieve something here by using grants – see below for more info on that.
THE HILL AT SIMS BAYOU
In July, Mike Lutomski and Veljko Roskar attended a walk at The Hill arranged by the Sims Bayou Coalition. Construction of this project, located near 288 and the South Beltway, is now complete; no local government agencies have stepped into adopt the project yet and nothing will be done for a while to allow new vegetation chance to mature. The project was originally billed as the Houston 2012 Olympic mountain bike venue, but of course once the Olympics went away, so did the money. But, the project was first and foremost for flood mitigation, undertaken by HCFCD. However, we are pleased to advise that the Sims Bayou Coalition have invited us to help with establishment of new trails when the land is ready – which will now be quite soon. This is yet another project that is ideal to be done by a grant.
LAKE HOUSTON PARK
In August, Lake Houston State Park was handed over to the City of Houston and renamed Lake Houston Park. COH have already asked GHORBA to assist with construction of natural surface trails – yet another opportunity!
CYPRESS CREEK GREENWAY PROJECT
This remains near the top of our priorities and the overall project contains several existing trails and some new opportunities.
Cypresswood Trail
It’s been a tough year at Cypresswood. In June, the landowner started logging the property and destroyed the trails. The private land comprises 76 acres out of the total of about 120. Trail steward Brandon Moss and his team have been working to maintain the existing trails on HCFCD land. The logging lead to a major advocacy effort using all the resources at our disposal and through our friends in the county, particularly Precinct 4 Parks Director Dennis Johnston, negotiations quickly commenced between the county and the landowners. Those negotiations are at a critical stage at the time of writing, and although the owners will retain part of the land for development, we are optimistic that the substantial portion of the land will become county owned and remain as a multi-use trail environment permanently. It will also become a vital connecting link of the overall Greenway project.
Cypresswood Improper
Chet Fielden and his team continue to develop cool trails on the creek upstream of SH249 and a lot of Cypresswood Trail users are now migrating over to “Improper” for the time being. Of course, we hope that soon we will have only one, connected Cypresswood Trail.
Little Cypress Creek Preserve
We have been helping the Legacy Land Trust with scouting new trails on this preserve, which is currently only open at weekends. We are looking at ways to connect a trail upstream to Fritsche Park, which is a major undeveloped tract of parkland.
Other areas
A scouting trip was made this summer on the creek around I-45 where there is lots of potential. A little further downstream near Hardy Toll Road, we have been in contact with a local MUD who want to develop natural surface trails in this area. Further downstream from that, the Cypress Creek Greenway meets the Spring Creek Greenway project, which actually extends 5 miles up Cypress Creek. The vision of the substantial portion of Cypress Creek being connected by a single trail is now realistic and within grasp. We are also working with other MUD’s and developers through our friends and allies at the Cypress Creek Greenway Project.
EXISTING TRAILS
It doesn’t seem fair to lump all of our other trails into a single paragraph does it? But all the other trails are going strong, with great leadership from the trail stewards – Memorial Park, Jack Brooks, Stephen F. Austin, Huntsville, and Double Lake.
Thanks so much to all the great volunteers that keep those trails in great shape: Clay Fenton, Brian Thigpen, Scott King, Kelly Strader, Steve Booker, Jimm Schroeder, and Robert Patrick.
Memorial Park has seen renewed activity as we seek to address issues that have long remained ignored – we have increased our presence on the Memorial Park Conservancy Trails Committee and we are working to address serious erosion issues and to expand the trail system, particularly in the Triangle Area.
2007 OUTLOOK
What can we do to top 2006? Build more trails! We have achieved an incredible level of credibility with other stakeholders in our trails: local government, park managers, environmental groups and other trail users.
The question is—how can we capitalize on this?
What we have learned in 2006 is that advocacy is the easy part; we seem to have no trouble getting a seat at the table to introduce new projects. However it’s very difficult to get sufficient volunteer time to build new trails on top of our existing maintenance commitments.
One way forward is grants. We hope to develop new trail projects by ramping up our grants writing operation. We have been speaking with Talon Trails about how they can do turnkey projects for us: they apply for grants, which are issued to GHORBA, then we contract with them to design and build the trail using the grant.
On completion, we can then gift the trail to a local park authority and enter into a trail maintenance agreement.
This is new territory for us: we will ramp up our financial organization to ensure that we are squeaky clean and can pass any audit requirements associated with grants.
In September 2006 we were disappointed to learn that Ryan Spates and Susan Stormer had parted company with Bike Texas / TBC and they are no longer “The Texas Trail Docs”. As you can see from their frequent mention above, they have been an integral part of our team.
With our advocacy and their technical support, we presented an unbeatable team. TBC have appointed a new Trail Doc, Mark Stines, whom we shall be working with in due course, but unfortunately, the many years of experience of Ryan and Susan will not easily be replaced. However, Ryan and Susan have now teamed up with Talon Trails and they enter into a new phase of their careers working as full time professional trail builders, but of course, now we must pay their fees. However, we are so glad that we used them as the Trail Docs so much in 2006, which helped to cement our current standing in the community and we shall be using them extensively to move on to the next phase of our history.
These are exciting times, with so many challenges and so many opportunities. Please keep up to date with us and ask how you can help. There will be even more opportunities for you to muck in and get dirty with us in 2007. Now, more than ever, the old saying remains true: if you ride a mountain bike in Houston, you need to be a part of GHORBA.
Happy Trails,
Kevin Highfield
VP-Trails
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By: Veljko
Dec 31