Crews are clearing trees as the trails continue to dry out.  The Cache Creek trails are mostly dry with a few lingering snow patches.  Everything below Sink or Swim is also good to go with just the snow on the ski slopes remaining.  Game Creek is dry up to the West Game junction and you can explore up both drainages above that until you start hitting snow in the north facing trees.  Munger is also drying out quickly with snow remaining on the north side of Wally World.  Crews will be heading out there next week to clear trees and work on drainage.  As you explore, be sure to let us know if you see downed trees on the trails via the Trail Maintenance Request button at the bottom of the page.  This really helps the crew find trees and clear them before user trails form around them.

Despite enthusiastic support from the community and more than a year of work, Friends of Pathways, Mountain Bike the Tetons and the Town of Jackson will not be moving forward this summer with plans to build another bike skills park on private property owned by the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole. Lack of options for securing a general liability insurance policy thwarted the project. Our sincere gratitude goes out to the staff and board of the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole, who were so gracious and supportive of this effort.

This was the right project but the wrong location. We have since learned that bike skills parks that are free and open to the public are best situated on public lands. This effort has not diminished our enthusiasm for constructing additional places where kids can hone their bike skills in a safe and accessible setting; we are sure that amongst the thousands of acres of public lands that surround our community – town, county, state, school district, federal –there is an appropriate place to welcome kids on bikes. We are committed to furthering that goal.

We are fortunate to still have the Blair Drive Bike Skills park available for beginner bike riders. FOP and MBT recently worked to add some additional single track to the park, and we will continue to look at some additional options for adding features to this Town-owned parcel. There are still neighborhood noise impacts associated with the pump track (oval loop) at Blair Drive, which may require design changes or elimination of the loop feature entirely.

If you would like to add your voice to the bike park discussion, please reach out to the Jackson Town Council, who will be considering design changes to the Blair Drive bike skills park this Monday, June 15th at a workshop. You can submit comments before the workshop via email.

Complete information can be found in the attached Jackson Hole Community Pathways Staff Report for Town Council or at this link: JHCP Staff Report re: Bike Park 

Blair Bike Park Diagram

 

The trails in the Cache Game area are almost dried out.  There is still some lingering snow and mud in the 5 way meadows on Wilson Canyon, as well as on upper Cache Creek and the north side of the Cache Game divide.  The crews installed more rock steps on Josies Ridge to help keep this popular steep trail from eroding.  We also started some clearing on Teton Pass where the snow line is slowly rising.  We were able to get up the Ridge trail from Fish Creek to switchbacks, and on Phillip’s Canyon to just below the Arrow trail junction.  Crater was also mostly dry as is the Parallel trail but trails in the trees on northern slopes are still holding snow.  Old Pass Road should be plowed of snow in the next day or two thanks to Jim Verdone.  With the warm temps it should be a great weekend to get out and enjoy the trails!

 

A rainy and cool week has slowed the trail drying process.  You can get a little farther up in elevation on sunny slopes without trees, but these same sections tend to get more rain and become muddy more quickly than trails under tree cover.  The lower portion of Ferrins is in good shape and Hagen is starting to dry out up to bridge 2 but it is pretty snowy beyond that.  The USFS crew cleared Munger this week and found it in good shape with only a few lingering snow drifts.  They also completed more work on the Josies steps to try and shore up the most eroded sections of trail.  We worked with MBT as well this week on a new bike park by the Blair Community Gardens.  The track is close to done but needs a few sunny days to dry out after all the rain this week.  When open it will be geared more towards kids on strider bikes and alleviate some of the congestion at the bigger park.  If you are looking for an adventure there are also some fun trails down the Snake River canyon at lower elevations.  Check out the Dog, Cabin, East Table, and Wolf Creek trails as well as some of the scenic trails down to the river.  It looks like the sun comes out for the weekend so get out and enjoy!

Also check out MBT’s reports here to find some more dry trails in Teton Valley!

After another sunny week more trails are drying out.  Most everything on the north side of Cache Creek is in the sun and has dried out.  The very end of Putt Putt has some snow and seeps that are keeping it muddy.  Trails below Sink or Swim and Hagen Highway are in great shape too with only the snow left on the ski runs within the Snow King resort.  Wilson Canyon is also dry up to the steep rocky part of the trail and Game Creek is coming along and is mostly snow free up to the West Game junction.  The higher elevations and shady areas are still holding some snow but melting fast so if you are out exploring try to stay on dry trail or snow and avoid making muddy areas worse.  If you see any trees across the trails or a spot that needs attention send us a trail maintenance request from our website with the button at the bottom right of your screen.

Have fun out there this weekend and make sure to check out Mountain Bike the Tetons Dirt Reports for other dry trails areas around the Wydaho Region here:

This week the crew worked on rebenching some switchbacks on the Ferrin’s Trail and breaking off the corner of the Ferrin’s Rock.  After a hearing more stories of bike crashes there (handlebars are getting wider right?) and having to try and shore up the half bench trail that dips under the rock on a steep side hill several times over the last few years we finally let loose the raw energy of the youth trail crew on it.  Turns out a half dozen people sledge hammering on a boulder can break off a foot or two of rock in a few hours.  The crew then reenforced the cribbing and leveled the trail out with all the rubble and dirt so the whole corner is much more sustainable now.

The crew then moved to a section of braided trail on the KC trail and closed and rehabbed the lower trail which had eroded into a gully.  They then added check dams to the lower trail to prevent erosion, tilled up the old trail, reseeded it, and covered it with erosion netting made from shredded Aspens.  Then they rebenched the upper trail and added drainage features to make sure it won’t form a gully like the old one.

Next the crew moved up to the History Trail to clear a large tree and build a turnpike on a boggy section of trail.  The crew extended the turnpikes that the Boy Scouts built in 2008 and channeled the water under the trail in a culvert and dug a large Y ditch to catch the water seeping from above.  They finished it off by peeling guide logs, staking them in place, and filling the whole thing with gravel to raise the level of the tread.  The crew finished up the week by working on the new East Table take out trail.  This new trail was built to replace the old take out trail that was on a very steep side hill that was slumping.

Also this week the new layout of the Big Munger trail was connected by the members of DIRT who are working as Crosscut Trails and Forestry.  The 4 new reroutes on the southern leg of the Big Munger trail removed the 30-45% eroded sections of the trail that went straight up the hillside.  When myself and Tim Farris laid out the trail we did so with the sustainable grade of the soils at Munger Mountain in mind.  This also means the new trail is much more accessible by Mountain Bikes and specifically E-Mountain Bikes which are allowed on the Munger trails from July 1 to September 9 each year.  The project will continue to touch up the trail and rehab the old eroded sections of trail and will move the the northern leg of the trail next year to make the loop to the top of Munger Mountain much more enjoyable by all.  Head out that way this weekend and enjoy the new section of trail!