September 2009

On Sept. 3, 2009, Jefferson County Open Space (JCOS) released its recommended, revised management plan for improving visitor experiences at Apex Park. The Colorado Mountain Bike Association (COMBA) believes the plan should be rejected in its current state, and offers this document as a resource for formulating a better proposal.

Important considerations for managing trail users at Apex Park:

• Cyclists represent the largest user group at Apex Park.
• 70% of comments generated from the public survey and a majority of participants at both JCOS Apex Open House events and related OSAC public meetings were from the mountain biking community. The resulting management plan, however, does not reflect that input.
• The only travel restrictions imposed by this plan are against cyclists, and the restrictions take from cyclists one of the jewels of the JCOS park system– the Enchanted Forest descent.
• JCOS's primary objective may be to eliminate "downhill biking" or “shuttling,” but the proposed plan will dramatically change the user experience for ALL cyclists.
• Proposed travel restrictions represent a major shift from current “shared use” policy existing elsewhere in the JCOS park system.
• The mandated route for bicycles would be unrideable much of the year due to the wet conditions that often exist on Enchanted Forest.
• The new “descent” route from the upper Apex trailhead includes a mandatory climb up Sluicebox – the most technical, tight and eroded trail in the park – and would be accessible to only the most advanced riders, in both riding skills and physical conditioning. There is no avenue for riders who lack the physical or technical skills to ride Sluicebox to descend safely to the lower trailhead and remain in compliance.
• Heavy-handed restrictions are not necessary as JCOS's own surveys and reports – backed by public comment survey responses – all agree that user conflict has significantly decreased in both Apex Park and the Open Space park system as a whole.
• Increased congestion will result from Pick N’ Sledge becoming a single funnel, or pinch point, of users – both hiker and biker – ripe for conflict.
• This plan is a recipe for user-conflict. Ill-will, animosity, a proliferation of illegal trails, flagrant disregard for travel restrictions and yielding regulations, conflicts among park users, and between park users and park rangers will likely result from restrictions of this nature. Enforcement actions will fall inequitably on a single user group – mountain bikers.
• The difficulty of enforcing the travel restrictions in this plan will be equal to its unpopularity. At best the problem will only move to neighboring parks – Chimney Gulch, White Ranch, Centennial Cone, and Mt. Falcon – concentrating users on a smaller network of trails.
• This is not a plan that comes from any group that represents a broad coalition of cyclists. The cycling representatives on the Trails Use Task Force (TUTF) were not selected by their respective user group, they have no term-limits and there is no mechanism for the mountain bike community to place or recall an individual to or from TUTF. Given these structural limitations, mountain bikers have had poor representation on TUTF with no recourse for lack of accountability of its “representatives”. The JCOS plan is based in large part on the TUFT proposal, which did not even have the support of all members of the TUTF.
• The Apex Park management plan will add to the fire under an already volatile situation.

A Better Approach for Managing Apex Trails

COMBA strongly encourages JCOS to reconsider this plan and follow a different path. Going forward, JCOS should consider the following facts and suggestions:

• The county democratically opened the Apex Park management planning process to public comment and mountain bikers enthusiastically participated. This plan, however, generally ignores those comments and opinions that were offered in good faith. Efforts should be made to incorporate the input offered by the mountain bike community and JCOS should continue to reach out to that user group throughout the planning process.
• Cyclists are one of the majority user groups in the JCOS park system, the largest user group at Apex Park and growing at double-digit rates. Any plan for Apex must address this fact.
• Instead of expending resources on restrictions and resulting enforcement, the county should work proactively and positively with the cycling community by engaging with and managing for mountain bikers.
• A cooperative relationship between mountain bikers and land managers has been successful in many instances, including on public land at Oregon's Black Rock and Post Canyon trail systems, Wyoming’s Teton Pass area trails, Florida’s Santos ride center, and Massachusetts’ Lynn Woods.
• Other user groups have been provided trails within the JCOS system to enjoy a recreational experience that is unique to their mode of travel. Mountain bikers’ needs have largely been ignored. JCOS can no longer afford such a strategy. Again, JCOS needs to work with mountain bikers in a positive and proactive manner to provide more trails, more technical features, and downhill directional trails.
• Mountain biking pumps $26 billion into the US economy. Jefferson County’s outdoor culture and economy uniquely benefit from this economic source, as do the municipalities therein.
• The Colorado Mountain Bike Association and International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) have offered help. Let’s work together and find common ground so mountain bikers can work with the county, rather than in opposition.

For the benefit of all the visitors at Apex Park please reconsider the Apex Park management plan as it is currently proposed. For a vision of how to travel down this cooperative path together, please refer to COMBA’s original recommendations to JCOS and presentation to OSAC for improving visitor experience at Apex Park:

• http://www.comba.org/sites/default/files/COMBA%20Apex%20Position%20Statement.pdf
• http://www.comba.org/PDF/apex_osac_presentation.pdf

Further Discussion of the Options for Apex Park

COMBA thanks JCOS and the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) for providing all park users with an open forum for planning the future of a park which is of paramount importance to so many of us.

However, despite cyclists’ representing the largest user group at Apex Park and mountain bikers' overwhelming participation in the public comment process, the only travel restrictions being imposed in this plan are counter to cyclists’ interests. These restrictions would significantly restrict mountain bikers' access at Apex Park and appear to be specifically designed to discourage park use by cyclists. COMBA firmly believes this plan is a major shift in JCOS policy, and could set dangerous precedent. As such, COMBA will oppose this plan as a threat to our access, not only at Apex Park, but as a threat to our access on all multiple use trails in the JCOS park system.

At the heart of this proposal is the county’s stated intention to "eliminate 'downhill biking' (shuttling)" at Apex. To this end, the Open Space staff proposes to bar bicycles from going downhill on the Enchanted Forest Trail and lower reaches of the Apex Trail – preventing a popular loop route from Chimney Gulch – and instead forcing cyclists to climb, again, up the Sluicebox Trail to return to the lower trailhead.

A primary objective may be to eliminate "downhill biking", but this plan would dramatically change the user experience for ALL cyclists. Whether a biker considers herself a cross-country rider, a freerider, singlespeeder, or downhiller – when we turn around at the top of Apex Park and point our bicycles downhill, we are all engaged in downhill biking.

By forcing uphill-only cycling traffic at key points in Apex Park, the JCOS plan takes from cyclists one of the jewels of the JCOS park system, the Enchanted Forest descent, and fundamentally impedes mountain bikers' historical use patterns at the park. The proposed plan appears to be an attempt to discourage all cycling at Apex, by mandating that mountain bikers take the most unappealing, physically challenging route through the park.

The path that mountain bikers would be required to follow would be unrideable much of the year due to the wet conditions, which often exist on the Enchanted Forest Trail, and would be accessible to only the most advanced riders, in both riding skills and physical conditioning, by requiring an extra climb up the Sluicebox trail – the most technical, tight and eroded trail in the park – in order to simply "descend" down the trail system– especially tough after having already climbed the strenuous uphill route through Enchanted Forest.

Not only is the plan unappealing it is unnecessary. JCOS's own findings from the 2009 Apex Park Management Plan and the 2008 JCOS Park Visitor Experience Survey documented that user conflict had significantly decreased in both Apex park and the park system as a whole during the survey periods. Even though the JCOS-authored “Opportunities to Improve Visitor Experiences at Apex Park" public comment survey did not ask the question, survey respondents repeatedly enforced the county’s findings by expressing the lack of conflict in the park in the write-in comments section of the survey. This plan represents a heavy-handed approach to reduce conflict when there is weak evidence that the problem justifies the response. Certainly a broad stroke response in an attempt to dissuade (not prevent) a few “bad apples” from “shuttling” Apex is not in the best interest of the larger cycling community.

The plan may be worse than the problem it hopes to solve. With 100,000 visitors a year, decreasing congestion is the crux of improving the user experience at Apex. Currently, descending traffic can disperse at the intersection of the Sluicebox and Apex trail with visitors choosing between the Sluicebox climb/Pick N’ Sledge descent and the lower Apex Trail descent. The county’s plan will mandate all cyclists – the quantifiably largest number of park users – to descend Pick N’ Sledge, congesting traffic onto one trail. Pick N’ Sledge will become a funnel, or pinch point, of users – both hiker and biker – ripe for conflict.

Following the fresh controversies over JCOS yielding regulations, the Direct Enforcement and Education Program, and trail maintenance practices, this proposed plan will produce the exact opposite of its intended purpose of decreasing user conflict at Apex Park. Instead it will only serve to inflame tensions between user groups. This is a hugely unpopular proposal among cyclists and since the plan only restricts one user group, all enforcement will necessarily fall on a single user group – mountain bikers. The difficultly of enforcing the travel restrictions in this plan will be equal to its unpopularity and inequity.

Even if JCOS is successful at enforcing unpopular travel restrictions at Apex Park, the problem will only move to another area – Chimney Gulch, White Ranch, Centennial Cone and Mt. Falcon. All of these close-proximity parks have the same basic configuration as Apex Park, with road shuttle access to the upper ingress points and upper park traffic all funneling into one or two trails which lead to the popular and crowded lower ingress points. Restricting access at Apex will not only congest more cyclists on these neighboring parks, but it will also move the downhill “shuttling” traffic, targeted by the Apex restrictions, to neighboring parks.

The county can make this type of “shuttle” riding illegal by designating trails as one-way uphill-only but it will be difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate the burgeoning community of mountain bikers searching for advanced terrain. COMBA firmly believes that embracing users is more successful than penalizing users, a point that has already been proven by land mangers throughout the country. Working examples of this method of cooperation with mountain bikers on public land include: Oregon's Black Rock and Post Canyon trail systems, Wyoming’s Teton Pass area trails, Florida’s Santos ride center, and Massachusetts’ Lynn Woods.

The ill-will that the county is engendering with more than half of its park visitors will predictably result in the proliferation of illegal trail building, flagrant disregard for travel restrictions and yielding regulations, and conflicts among parks users, and between park users and park rangers. Instead of finding common ground with mountain bikers, the Apex Park management plan will certainly turn up the fire under an already volatile situation. The county needs to consider how much of its resources it is willing to expend, and animosity it is willing to generate, before it implements the proposed plan.

The unpopularity of this proposal in the cycling community is in part a result of the cycling community having poor representation with the Open Space Advisory Committee (OSAC) and JCOS through the Trails Use Task Force (TUTF). The cycling representatives on TUTF were not selected by their respective user group, require no qualifications, have no term-limits and there exists no mechanism for the mountain bike community to place or recall an individual to or from TUTF. Given these structural limitations, the experience and desires of the mountain biking community have not been adequately conveyed by the cycling representatives of TUTF to the county. It is worth noting that TUTF hiker representatives have pledged support for the plan previously forwarded by COMBA, while expressing dissent from the proposal submitted by the TUTF biker representatives (upon which the revised JCOS plan is largely based).

JCOS can follow another path. Under the title of "Opportunities to Improve Visitor Experiences at Apex Park" the county opened the Apex Park management planning process to public comment. Mountain bikers eagerly participated in the public comment process being the majority of attendees at both JCOS Apex Open House events and the intervening OSAC public meetings. Of the 570 public comments generated from public comment survey, at least 398, or 70 percent, came from the cycling community. The requests from the 398 were strongly in favor of more education, more trails and more challenging technical trail features. The county's proposal, which centers on forcing cyclists to ride uphill at multiple points in the park, was reflected nowhere in the 70 percent of comments submitted directly to the county through the COMBA website.

Cyclists are one of the majority user groups in the JCOS park system and the largest user group at Apex Park. There are 50 million mountain bikers in the US – a population growing at double-digit rates – pumping $26 billion into the economy. The JCOS 2008 Master Plan projects the county to grow to 550,046 residents by 2010 and anticipates trail-based recreation to increase. Just as other user groups have trails where they can enjoy a recreational experience which is unique to their mode of travel, JCOS cannot afford to ignore the needs of its mountain bike user group – more trails, more technical features and downhill directional trails are in order.

Keeping in good faith with the cycling community, who themselves participated respectfully in the Apex Park management planning process, is critical if JCOS wants to head-off an impending ideological battle between the county and mountain bikers. JCOS has cyclists’ attention and engagement. COMBA and IMBA have extended their hands to help the county improve the visitor experience at Apex Park. Let’s work together and find common ground so mountain bikers can work with the county, rather than in opposition.

For the benefit of all visitors to Apex Park we believe JCOS should thoughtfully reconsider the Apex Park management plan as it is currently proposed.

Respectfully,

The Colorado Mountain Bike Association Board of Directors, on behalf of its members.

Terry Breheny, President
Jason Bertolacci, Vice President
Kyle Henley, Secretary
Michelle Beckman, Director
Joe Hanrahan, Director
Nancy Kelly, Director
Hillary Seminick, Director
Adam Williams, Director
Nathan Wyant, Director