Trails Team
MEET OUR TRAILS TEAM
Lead by Trails Program Director Gil McCormick, our Trails Team makes a real impact for Front Range mountain bikers across Jefferson, Clear Creek, Douglas, Park, Arapahoe, and Gilpin counties. With more than 400 miles of natural surface trails to steward, our Trails Team consists of a broad range of skill sets that allow us to cover every phase of a trail project. We work with federal, state, county and municipal land mangers to bring the best possible MTB experiences to our public lands while improving the trails experiences for all trail users in the process. Balancing recreation and conservation is critical to the long term health of Colorado's public lands and we strive to be responsible partners in the planning and development of all our trails projects.
Alongside Gil, uber-volunteer David Knox is our Deputy Trails Team Leader and Volunteer Coordinator. Rounding out the leadership team are almost a dozen Team Leaders that maintain important relationships with each land manager in our area. The heart and soul of the work we do along the central Front Range are our volunteers and they contribute more than 7,000 hours of trail work every year. If you are interested in volunteering for trail work, contact us at trails@comba.org. We are currently in need of Team Leaders for Staunton, Chatfield, and Golden Gate State Parks, as well as an Urban Projects lead.
We have a Trails Team meeting quarterly and we invite you to attend to learn more about our efforts and how you can contribute. Whether you're an experienced trail builder or a complete newbie, we're happy to get you involved in a project you'll enjoy and feel like you made a positive impact on! We also regularly host days for corporate community giving teams of up to 20. For more information, contact us at trails@comba.org.
TRAIL CONSERVATION SERVICES
COMBA got its start in 1991 when a group of MTBers started caring for the local trails they were riding, calling themselves Trail Conservation Services (TCS). On our 30th anniversary, COMBA applied for and received a Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) grant to hire a seasonal crew to work on the maintenance backlog on area trails this summer. So we're dusting off the TCS moniker and getting to work this summer of 2021.
Our young team is working primarily on forest service trails in the Buffalo Creek and Indian Creek recreation areas. The crew of 8 is camping out in the national forests to reach trails that are often too remote for the standard volunteer work party single-day effort. Already adopting their own nickname, "Strike Force", the TCS team is making an immediate impact on the heavily used natural surface trails in our area.
While we are excited to have the opportunity to create this team from scratch this year, our longterm goal is to make this a regular program for COMBA that we can add to our annual efforts far into the future. There is a substantial backlog of trail maintenance in the Front Range that far outpaces the current capacity of area land managers and volunteer efforts, and we are committed to improving as many of the trail experiences as we possible can, year-in and year-out.