Most Precious Leader!
Albeit slight, there IS a history to what us trailworkers are calling our current and needed reroute:
“Annie’s ReRoute” – Meadow Trail, Horse Gulch
Fall, 2019
St. Columba MS MTB Club riding Meadow Trail in Horse Gulch under Head Coach steve ilg and Assistant Coach “B”.
Winding up a great ride of Staceys to Meadow from St. Columba, student Annie Betcholt (of local Betcholt Engineering) fell
hard while descending the chronically cross-rutted finish of Meadows (an extremely popular and rare beginners level MTB loop within the Durango City MTB trail system). Annie, an experienced equestrian champion, immediately sprung to her feet several feet above her crashed bike.
Riding up to her; tears streaming from her eyes, lips quivering, yet refusing to cry. We all looked at her blood-splacked leg. The thought coursed through ilg’s adrenalin filled body; “This is not right. This is a beginners trail and it should not continue down this bi-furbicated, cross-rutted drainage!” Made an inner promise to advocate–as an employee of Durango Trails–for an updated finish to this classic beginner loop.
June, 2021
ilg watches anxiously as a mini-excavator begins trampling trees, sagebrush, and shoves heavy metal teeth into Mother Earth to monument ilg’s new line (co-flagged with my Chief Crew Leader, Tyler) that hopefully ensures generations ahead will enjoy a fun-filled new reroute bathed in sinuosity, safety, and sustainability.
Have had the Blessed Honor of being on the creation and build of many of Durango’s hallowed trails over ilg’s 59 years . . . yet this build? Tis a special one.
Cuz? It was rooted from a precious child’s pain and? Shall bloss(om) into another Durango trail user’s gain!
Annie’s ReRoute is projected to be open to the general public by Saturday, July 3rd.
head bowed,
feeble ilg
special gratitude to ilg’s employer: DurangoTrails.org
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