Bigjim maybe glentress is different and fc Scotland put significant financial support into trail building but there are plenty of trail centres where they don’t, they just provide land which they have a statutory duty to provide amenity access, and little to no financial support. I bet car park ticket turnover and many sites runs into the £100’s thousands pounds take away the trails and it would be a fraction of the level, so yes reap the rewards. Lol? I have nothing against volunteer group building great trails to very high standards, said groups seeking funding through charitable donations grants etc, I just think in many but not all cases the FC could give more money back to the trail builder groups for further trail building and maintenance. I’m sure there’s not many trail builder groups that would object to even 5% of revenue from parking going trail building.
first time there at the weekend racing the vallelujah, great weekend with some really good stages. hope they dont loose to many as want to get back up there at some time. think it mentioned in the race notes about being the last enduro possibly to use one section.
I took part in the Innerleithen DH trails dig days that were part of the Take Care Of Your Trails Weekend these last couple of days and was able to learn more about the forthcoming changes to Glentress forest:
* There's 16k of new trails on the way.
* We're losing 3.5k of existing trails, primarily the freeride park and Zoom or Bust.
* There'll be a new climb that will avoid the area around the cabins.
* Blue Velvet will end a little sooner.
* Berm Baby Berm will get a new (longer) entrance and its end will be modified.
* There'll be a bunch of new trails coming down the hillside that overlooks the Peel centre. These will be a mix of grades and will include jump lines as well as more regular trails.
* The new trails will be built before the old trails are decommissioned.
* The current aim plan for the new trails to be in place in the next year.
Sounds good to me - I will miss zoom and bust tho and is it still the plan to close the upper car park? I have used that when taking newbies so they don't have to do the big climb
I don't know for certain but I expect that the upper car park area will be going and/or become focused on the cabins. However there'll be a bunch of "taster trails" down by the Peel so there'll be more fun to be had at the bottom of the hill than there is now.
While it's sad that Zoom or Bust will be lost there's space for some new handbuilt trails amongst the other new builds so hopefully that'll soften the blow.
Are the 16k of new trails going to all be like actual trail sections and not counting any new access tracks and climbs?
@rene59 I don't know. I'd expect it'll refer to new singletrack sections. I don't know if the new climb will be singletrack nor whether it'd be included in the total if it is. That wasn't a question asked when I was in earshot of a ranger, sorry.
If the numbers that were at Inners this weekend were to make a more regular appearance at normal fairy sessions just think of the new zoom or busts that could be created. I say this as a somewhat lapsed fairy these days but I have done my time in the past helping with zoom or bust, pie run, mushroom pie etc. Hopefully I'll get to a few more in the future.
