Now for a note from Joanne LaBelle about Mahogany Creek and the reroutes from the first TVTAP trail day:
ust a quick thank you from the horseback trail users of TVTAP. We rode from the Mahogany creek trailhead up to Elk Flats yesterday. What a pleasure that trail is becoming. The two re-routes are just as nice for horses as they will be for Mtn bikes. We took a two pruning saws and did get some of the higher branches cleared that hit a horse rider in the face or chest, but that hikers and bikers don’t notice. Scott and his forest service crew, buffed out the new rock section we were building on trail day, and it is GREAT for horses. (thanks Scott!)
There is still plenty of work to be done on the top 1/3 of this route, but the bottom is just tremendous. So trail day in August up there again will be much needed. And by the way, if you are riding the crest trail, between the saddle where Mahogany hits the crest trail, up to Elk flats, there was a serious blow down pile, about 15 ft tall. Well yesterday, as we were riding it, two dirt bikers had small chain saws, and they cut a trail up and around this pile making it ride-able for us all. I wish I had gotten their names. It was impossible to cut where the original trail had been, in that one spot, but in another many of the bikers had just been riding around the logs where they could. (Scott, you probably have been up there, but there are quite a few dirt bike trails off thru the woods around deadfall on that section, that if you guys took in some big saws, could be eliminated.) These guys did their best, but they had very small chainsaws.
So go ride this trail!! With the forest service’s work on Mahogany, all the logs are cleared to the top! (the mud and ruts still remain on the top 1/4- but what can you do!) Scott and his crew have really been working in there I could tell.
