Plea for mountain bikers to observe Ae Forest closures

Whilst I'm content to assume my own level of risk in negotiating fallen trees locally, I do draw a line at accessing trails where harvesting is taking place. I suppose there will always be those who couldn't give a monkey's when it comes to accessing closed trails.

Hmm, we were there 3 times in the last week, we did use the fire road on Green Hill to access one of the trails, but, it was around 8pm when we were there, and I certainly didnt see any signs saying dont go up there. It is quite clear that the hill is being cleared of trees, but there arent any trails through the bit that is being felled anyway, the fire road past the felling is used to link in other bits.. From the top of green hill, all of the natural/off-piste trails are open afaik. We didnt bother this Tuesday, as the fire road up there is a mess, due to the forestry vehicles churning it up, making it a horrible slog up there.

As for most of the other trails being open, thats rubbish.Around a third of the Red is shut due to trees down, part of the green has been shut for over a year, even the blue (which is mostly fire road) has a diverted section - maybe thats the bit Katharina means? The diversion signs are not great, and there is nothing saying ’Stop, dont go this way!’ on the route. Some of the ‘off-piste’ trails are closed, mainly as the forestry staff dont monitor or maintain them, and the volunteers shouldnt be using chainsaws to clear the route.

Did I miss them saying how long the felling/clearance work is going on for?

I was at Ae a couple of weeks ago, just riding the other hill and it was obvious the storm had caused havoc.

TTTT lower and Frazers both wrecked I believe?

The Green Hill felling is different from the storm fallen tree clearance. Contractors come in and do the felling/cutting to length/stacking/removing. AFAIAA, its the foresty staff who do the storm tree clearance.

Yes, there was still no access to the trig point on Tuesday,  saw a pic a couple of weeks ago, there must have been 20 trees down on one fire road up to the trig point, I’d presume the trails were no better. Note, FS do not advertise or take any responsibility for the ‘off-piste’ trails. They allow the volunteers to do the work on them, but they can be a bit strict on what can/cant be done. It was offered that some people went up there with chainsaws, but that got a straight refusal.

i understand that often forestry work takes place over a protracted time and sometimes there's not very much going on, and the reasons that signs and fencing aren't removed during idle periods have been explained to me (if there's a contract in place still, the signs stay up) but those signs loose all effectiveness if there's f all going on. it might take an hour to go around and take down/put signs up, but if you want them to be effective they have to relevant to what's going on. no one in their right mind wants to go in to an area where there's wiring blades at work (which BTW does often continue in to darkness) but equally, if the bit of forest that has the great trails hasn't been touched for 2 months you can't blame people for having at it. the very definition of the boy that cried wolf.

Chatting to a contractor at glentress he was telling me he'd had dozens of folk blast past him from his blind spots (360 with flail head). 

Having worked in forestry, the machines just turn their lights on and bash on. Productivity doesn't rely on daylight. 

I ride at Ae regularly and am quite annoyed at the way this has been reported. Inaccurate to say the least.

I went for a ride two weeks ago just after the works started and went up to Greenhill I noticed there was a harvester working so changed my route. There was no signage to say the works were being carried out. No restrictions on access obvious just the noise of a machine working. 

The contractor and FLS are souly responsible for this situation due to their inability to let the public know that this was happening and more importantly basic health and safety procedures not being in place to prevent the public from walking / riding into a dangerous environment. 

I am a local and was completely unaware that this was happening and due to zero messaging and signage anywhere I could have put myself in danger ... the big machines gave that away a wee bit though. 

I don't know who reported this to the rag that is the Daily Record but they should be asking themselves a few questions about accurate reporting. 

All riders in my experience at Ae are reposnsible and will take there own safety and that off others to heart.

I was there a few days ago and cycled past Greenhill and there was still no signs or any warning that works were being carried out. Sure the Health and Saftey Exec would have something to say. 

It's a shame that single track have jumped on the band wagon instead of looking for the truth. 

Why let the Truth get on the way of a good story...

I’ve been up there today, and they have now put up fencing to stop people going along that fire road. There was nothing there before, not even signs saying ‘No Entry’.

Would any locals be kind enough to advise on the current situation at Ae?

Are the Green Hill trails all out of bounds still? Is much of the off-piste blocked on the main hill?

Was gonna pop in on Friday.

Posted by: chakaping

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Would any locals be kind enough to advise on the current situation at Ae?

Are the Green Hill trails all out of bounds still? Is much of the off-piste blocked on the main hill?

Greenhill will be closed until at least Easter, though I suspect it'll be the end of April at the earliest. Of course, there is only one access to the off piste trails from the top there, so they are all off limits.Most of the other trails are open now, there are a few trees down on the off piste stuff from the Trig Point, but they can be bypassed. Rabs on the red is closed, and will be for a while yet as the trees down there are massive with no vehicle access to them.

There’s still enough open to make it worthwhile, most of the red, and most of the downhill. The Shredder is meant to be shut still, but we came down it last week, there is a tree down, but easily bypassed.

Cheers for that, very helpful.

So I expect I'll most likely be lapping Turn Down, Blue Rum, Tea Time, TTTT and the other trails on that part of the hill - and maybe pedal round to Craigshields.

FLS can confirm all relevant safety signage was and is in place advising of closures due to forestry operations in the Green Hill area of Ae Forest. [endquote]

Whoever is/was responsible can not say anything other than this and remain in post. The locals are calling "stronzo" on this from early March. Having been on the receiving end of a manager lying to me because they had not completed safety assessment and mitigations my experience suggests that a slapdash job of exclusion was carried out earlier and now STW have called them on it they have got their backsides into gear and are doing the job properly. (Contractor probably didn't budget for Heras fencing and signage, to which the reply is always what's the budget for a fatal/life-changing accident)

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FLS can confirm all relevant safety signage was and is in place advising of closures due to forestry operations in the Green Hill area of Ae Forest. [endquote]

Yes, there probably was the usual ‘Felling in this area’, but there are a lot of those around the forest, there were none specifically saying “do not use this fire / forest road”. which should have been done,  there are no trails where the felling is being done, but, the fire road past the felling is the only way to get to the trails on that side of the forest. But, tbh, we were up there the previous week, yet didnt notice any new signs saying felling was ongoing. It was obvious there was, as the plant and tractors were there, but no one was working.

 

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