Trail News
Double Lake Trail Expansion Approved
The new trail is a modest expansion of just under a mile, in two sections, and will provide some sweet additional single-track trail.
“Double Lake”http://www.ghorba.org/trail-info/double_lake is the only dedicated mountain bike trail in the Sam Houston National Forest and GHORBA has been working to expand trail opportunities for cyclists in this large and beautiful expanse of rolling forest land to the north of the Greater Houston Area. We deliberately went for a modest trail expansion in order to have a test run through the approval process and to try and get it done quickly.
Approval of this trail is the culmination of a cooperative effort led by GHORBA using the resources of IMBA’s Subaru Trail Care Crew and the US Forest Service. The major portion of the new trail was designed and laid out by trail professionals Ryan Spates and Susan Stormer of Talon Trails.
We threw the best resources available at the design and layout and that has proved to be a wise investment in time and money. In order to assist in smooth passage of the approval process, we also brought in the Houston Sierra Club’s SHNF Forestry Conservation Committee Chair, Brandt Mannchen, who provided some positive feedback on the trail layout, which was implemented into the final design.
Special thanks are due to Jim Mackey of GHORBA who provided a significant amount of personal time to help with the layout, planning and advocacy work necessary to achieve this. But most of all, we want to extend a HUGE thank you to the new Sam Houston National Forest district ranger, Warren Oja, who has really provided outstanding leadership and guidance to fast-track the approval process through the complex and often difficult requirements for new projects on federal land. Warren took over as the new permanent District Ranger in November 2006, and we hope that we’ll be able to build on the wonderful cooperative relationships we’ve developed in this process for future projects.
It was our hope that we would have the new section constructed in time for the 2007 Big Ring Challenge race in May, but it looks like we won’t make it for then. Although we have permission to commence construction now, we want to make sure that we do it right and demonstrate best possible practice for sustainable trails. After all, this is a practice run: there’s a lot more real estate out there in the SHNF and we plan to use the relationships developed and knowledge gained to make a major expansion of the Double Lake trail system.
Watch out for news of work parties in the not too distant future – we can’t wait to get started and hope that we’ll see lots of you out there to help.
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