# Horse Trails are Disappearing



## busysmurf (Feb 16, 2012)

I'm pretty lucky where I live. Since it's in a state forest, there's hundreds of miles of trails accessible. We have do have to pay a yearly fee of $10 for a bridle tag but it's worth it. The trails are multi purpose (walking, biking, skiing, & snowmobiling) so some of them are paved. If anything, they've cleared more trails.

We even have a campground for horses! It has an open barn with slip stalls or each site has 2 slip stalls.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Pattilou (Jul 8, 2010)

As I stated in another post. In CA its becoming a big issue.... too much land development. Oh, they make keep a trail system, but it gets so disjointed it takes twice as long to get where you want to go.

And no one should think State Park land is safe. We have many parks cutting hours and cutting services. Many of our horse camps are doing this.

As members of the horse community we have to constantly stay on our toes and be aware of what is going on in our community.


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## Painted Horse (Dec 29, 2006)

Closer to the population centers, They have actually improved the trail system and have built some new trails. But these are multi-use trails for hikers, biker, horses. 

The trails I see shrinking are the ones off the beaten path. The Forest Service and BLM don't have the budget to maintain the lessor used trails. They are not closing the trails, but they just don't get cleared of blow downs or get the trail work required to keep them open.

1st thing riders should do is make sure they sign in at any trail heads. The Forest Service doesn't know who used the trails if there is no sign in sheet. Nor do they know how many folks used a trail. So make sure you are visable and counted by signing the trail head logs.

2nd, Many trails are not getting budgeted for maintenance. So you as a ridder need to do some of the maintenance. Each year I take a chain saw and go clear one of the favorite trails I ride. I talked to the Forest Service and they were happy to have me cutting out blowdowns as long a I didn't remove any wood from the forest. ( no taking free firewood home). I enjoy taking a couple of days to ride that country. I ride one horse and pony a pack horse with saw, gas and other supplies. We frequently stop and cut out the deadfalls. It's good practice for the horses to stand around with a loud saw.

Back Country Horsemen here in Utah likes to report back to the various ownership agencies how many donated hours were donated to trail maintenance. So report your hours to them so they can be included. Again this is just being visable in your efforts.


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## clippityclop (Jul 12, 2012)

We have state forests here too, in TX, but there have been years that the forestry has shut down endurance rides that have been going on for decades due to lack of funds/personnel, etc.

If it wasn't for the founding of local groups/charters that are run by volunteers (and volunteer $), we'd have no place to ride - many of these groups volunteer their own time, money, weekends, equipment and gas to maintain and create trail systems. They spend many an hour watching and lobbying for trail preservation rights and sending out mass emails from their iphones in the parking lot at Austin to let us know how our political people are holding up while they are speaking about our issues before the house/senate, etc.

If you know someone who is a part of one or more of these very special organizations, support them as much as you can, however you can - even if it means just showing up as another warm body at a meeting - you never know who might be there. Sometimes a point can be made even without words, just by the showing of the masses. These groups are our lifeline to keeping public lands open to equestrians. This is indeed a matter worthy of our full attention!


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## FlyGap (Sep 25, 2011)

We volunteer in our forest and maintain a very long length of trail ourselves. Funds come from our business. We do erosion control, clear downed trees, put up and replace trail markers, and keep an eye on stuff for them...

Lately they closed down thousands of miles of ATV trails. While I don't blame them, some of their concerns were due to erosion and protecting the watersheds, but they didn't come up with alternatives or ways to increase revenue to cover the costs of maintaining... JUST SHUT IT DOWN. They also didn't change the use to horses or hikers, chopped down hundreds of trees to close them off. Grrrrrr. We really need a horses only trail! We have the Ozark Highlands trail that runs directly around and through our properties, but HIKERS ONLY. They really enforce it too.

THEN, they harvested thousands of acres of timber and cut in new logging roads. Now all those are getting ATV traffic... The river is visibly more polluted below the areas they logged... They just can't get it right!
After they were done they sent in photos of the logged areas and got federal funding to burn the excess fuel left from all the branches, we had to breath smoke for months.

You really have to watch these guys. Volunteer, and get involved.


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## gunslinger (Sep 17, 2011)

Bingo FlyGap. 

Ever see what a tornado does to a forest? Clear Cut, or other natural disasters?

The problem, as I see it, is that once you exclude a group, ATV's, etc, then it becomes much easier to exclude the next group...i.e....horses.

Public land should be enjoyed by all, ATV's included.

That's not to say sensitive area's shouldn't be protected, but we should work to include as many other uses for public land as possible as it protects our ability to use the land as we want to use it.


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Sadly, around here the mountain bikers are much better organized and adept at lobbying for funding than horse folks.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Thunderspark (Oct 17, 2012)

I'm in Canada and we have alot of trails within an hour of us that we trailer to ride for a day or camp for a few days. Luckily right by our place one of our neighbor's who owns a 1/4 section gave us permission to ride on her land where there are tons of trails that they used to ride/hike on also......but the trails we ride on when we trailer some of them ATVs also use them, we avoid those ones on weekends and go during the week and never see them out there but are full on the weekends with ATVs and dirt bikes.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Although my interest in multiple use of public lands is so I can trail cattle across twice a year, I really try to stay on top of horseman issues.

Our local trail riders have to fight to continue riding on Forest Service, BLM, State, etc. Too many people just don't value riding. They often see people who own horses, especially those who own them as a hobby, as an elitist, self serving, and exclusionary bunch. 

I'm very "unfond" of ATV. To me, their only value is as a vehicle for work. But, I support the ATV riders, too, knowing that if they get kicked off public land it will be easier for horses to, just as Gunslinger pointed out.


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## gunslinger (Sep 17, 2011)

boots said:


> Although my interest in multiple use of public lands is so I can trail cattle across twice a year, I really try to stay on top of horseman issues.
> 
> Our local trail riders have to fight to continue riding on Forest Service, BLM, State, etc. Too many people just don't value riding. They often see people who own horses, especially those who own them as a hobby, as an elitist, self serving, and exclusionary bunch.
> 
> I'm very "unfond" of ATV. To me, their only value is as a vehicle for work. But, I support the ATV riders, too, knowing that if they get kicked off public land it will be easier for horses to, just as Gunslinger pointed out.


I'm no ATV fan either. I think the few that ride off trail and race down the trails at 90 mph are giving the respectful ATV's a bad image. Another big problem is a bunch of liberal tree huggers that seem to think that anything that makes a track is bad.

I do have good news though. I stopped by the headquarters for the Cherokee National Forest and they've built a few new horse trails and have a project underway to continue building new trails.

I've been told the Forest service sees recreational use in a different way than it has in the past. I hope the trend continues. We ride quite a bit in the National Parks and I'm happy that in every case, where I've asked, the NPS has been more than willing to accommodate me.

I've met the NFS leo...a young fellow who gave me his card and told me to call him if I see anything I think he should know about.

I really think we're headed in the right direction at the federal level.

The real problem here in Tennessee seems to be with the wildlife resources agency. They gobble up chunks of land, close them to most everything, then only open them for hunting a few days a year. They seem to be so afraid someone might poach a deer or turkey that they see everyone as poachers and tend to treat everyone like a criminal. I quit buying a hunting license a few years back and refuse to buy another one until the treat me like a customer rather than a criminal and realize who pays their pay check.

Public land should be available to everyone with as few limitations as possible.


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## Darrin (Jul 11, 2011)

Tree huggers here in Oregon want to shut down all state/federal land to all but as few elite (themselves) to use. Forest service is helping them because quite honestly, those very same tree huggers are the ones running things. Between designating areas as critical and not maintaing trails in other areas, huge tracts of lands have been effectively shut down. To be fair, they do a good job of maintaining trails in areas they deem appropiate for use and work well with horse groups who want to expand/maintain trails in those areas.

In western and parts of central Oregon a trail can literaly disappear in a single year without maintenance due to brush growth rates. That's not counting blow downs that we get every year. Rest of Oregon is pretty arid so trails can last for decades with no maintenance at all.


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## Joe4d (Sep 1, 2011)

Gunslinger, we fought this battle in VA, with "Wildlife Management areas" The argument was Hunting license fees purchased the land, of course counter argument was you couldnt separate all the tax dollars, especially considering only 2% of VA residents hunt. Now I'll be the first to admit historically hunters have been on the front lines of land conservation. They do also have a valid point. Eventually a solution that most of us can live with came about. A WMA access permit was made, to go on the lands you needed either a hunting liscense OR a WMA acess permit of only a few dollars available pretty much anywhere. Along with that was although not closed DGIF reccomend you dont ride on hunting days, and kept a No hunting on Sunday law. So pretty much good for all, Of course here we are years later and the hunting groups want to renig on the agreement by opening up Sunday hunting. So back to the capitol. and back to the letter writing and phone calls.


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## Painted Horse (Dec 29, 2006)

I own an ATV and I'll admit I've ridden it on a lot of trails across Utah. There are places where it is appropriate. My Desert Bighorn Sheep hunt was one. I often had to park my truck/trailer 10-15 miles away from where I was hunting. It would have taken hours to ride a horse across that country, But the ATVs made short work of that desert trails.

Utah has created many multi-use trails. The ones that have constant ATV traffic, I avoid with my horses, But the less popular ones have been fun to ride the horses on the occasional ATV have been polite and curteous. Usually the less popular one are less popular because they are rougher, more challenging for the ATV riders, Which makes the better suited for horses anyway.

My argument against the ATV crowd are the ones that don't live with in the rules. There are many areas in our state that don't allow wheeled or mortorized vehicles. But come hunting season, guys on ATVS seem to think it is alright to travel anywhere.

There is a bike shop near me that has really done a great job ofpromoting mountain biking. They have gotten permission and really improved and added new trails. The only problem is most of their trails have only been cleared of branches about 5 foot off the ground. Riding a 16h horse, I will be scrapped off by the branches they have not cleared. So I will probably not be arguing with them about using their new trails. As long as the Forest Service does not close off the older trails. It seems the bikers often re-route the old trails to get more switchbacks and gentler grades, So they modify the old horse trails and then complain of road apples on what they consider their trails.


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## Tazmanian Devil (Oct 11, 2008)

gunslinger said:


> Bingo FlyGap.
> The problem, as I see it, is that once you exclude a group, ATV's, etc, then it becomes much easier to exclude the next group...i.e....horses.
> 
> Public land should be enjoyed by all, ATV's included.



I can only speak for my area, which is pretty heavily populated. There are more than a few ATV users who have ruined it for everyone else. I have an ATV, but ride it on private land in a rural area. There are no legal places for ATVs in my area.


That said, I agree with your premise. This is an important concept that horse people need to understand.

In my area, we continue to lose access to horse trails. Some are closed down, some are taxed heavily (permit fee increases), some are given to other groups and some are lost to development.

There are many groups fighting to keep "open space." Much of our area has been overdeveloped in the past 20-30 years. Fortunately, the overdevelopment is so obvious that even the local governments are aware of it. They set aside money for purchase of open land and there are ways to sell "development rights" to keep open space. We still have to work at it, but things aren't as bad as they could be.

As state and local governments are looking for money, they seem to feel horse owners are easy targets. We have a few state parks and county parks with horse trails. Both are free for the general public to use, but require an annual permit fee for horse access. The state recently doubled the annual fee from $25 to $50 (which doesn't include the daily $7 parking fee). I think the county fee is $20-30/year, in addition to a basic park pass fee.

Aside from the high cost, the permits are difficult to get since the office is a far drive (not at the park) and doesn't have convenient hours.

Enforcement is virtually nil, so most people don't bother to pay for the pass - they just ride the trails. While I don't necessarily agree with this practice, it does lead to some interesting results. Some groups urge riders (whether they use the trails or not) to get pass since that is how equestrians will be "counted." Makes sense until you realize that we are still greatly outnumbered in the area by hikers and bikers. At the same time, each increase in fees lowers the number of permits purchased. Personally, I won't pay the fee so don't ride the trails. In reality, the number of permits purchased is a result of the fee charged - not an accurate number of equestrians who use (or would use) those trails. Since the bikes and hikers don't have to pay a fee (fee trail access), of course they outnumber us.


Which brings me back to the original point...

I am a proponent of multi-use trails. A few yahoos aside, there is no reason trails cannot be used my many groups. This concept is in the distinct minority in my area.

Our local "decision makers" (park managers, politicians, etc.) firmly believe that horses do NOT mix with any other trail use. This opinion is strongly backed up by the local trail bike organization, which has more members than any of our various horse groups.

We have seen several equestrian trails lost to bikers and hikers. A long network of state park horse trails was closed to horses years ago. That wooded trail was recently supplemented by a companion paved trail for bike. They now have two adjacent trails and horses still have none.

Much of this comes down to numbers - more people (voters) with big mouths get things done. In my area at least, horse people are splintered. The jumpers don't care about trails and the trail riders don't care about the trails they don't use on a regular basis. It is small pockets of horse people that rarely look beyond their own backyard. In comparison, the bike group is big, united and active across the area.

Politicians and other use groups use this to accomplish a divide and conquer strategy. Horse people end up suffering death by a thousand cuts.

Equestrians need to stick together, regardless of discipline. If it is good for one discipline, it is probably good for us all.

If you don't agree with "multi-use" trails, just remember... the other option is usually "closed to horses." If all the groups (Bike, horse, ATV, etc.) would get together, saving trails would be much easier. A coalition of trail users carries considerable more clout when taking to the politicians who decide these things.


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## amberly (Dec 16, 2012)

Up were I live, I haven't heard of any place were we can go trial riding locally.


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