Big Mother Hill restoration

[Rob]

Several groups will be doing restoration work on Big Mother Hill in Left Hand Canyon on Sept. 11.

Just got this press release:



Big Mother Hill Forest Restoration


Saturday, September 11


100 VOLUNTEERS NEEDED


Our 7th Year in Left Hand Canyon!

Greetings,

Please join us to honor the memory of this date by coming together in a community effort to care for our public lands. This year, we'll be focusing on Big Mother Hill, in this seventh year of ongoing restoration in Left Hand Canyon.

Over the past six years, Wildlands Restoration Volunteers has collaborated with the US Forest Service, James Creek Watershed Initiatie, Walsh Environmental Services, and Trail Ridge Runners, to complete the first six phases of an award-winning restoration project benefiting hundreds of acres of forest habitat and downstream water quality. Most previous work has focused on reducing erosion from miles of spur roads that dissected hundreds of acres of forest habitat, plus the restoration of nearly a mile of stream in Carnage Canyon.

This fall, our work will concentrate on restoring an entire hillside that has been impacted by past motorized activity. Heavy equipment will prepare the area. Volunteers will seed and mulch the area, transplant tree seedlings, and install erosion matting to prevent erosion.

This projected is funded in part by a Colorado State 319 grant, and the National Forest Foundation.

Community Celebration with food and live music at the end of the day!



Register for this Project (http://www.wlrv.net/colorado/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.events&type=792#Event546)



Wildlands Restoration Volunteers | 3012 STERLING CIR STE 201 | BOULDER | CO | 80301



www.wlrv.org (http://www.wlrv.org/) | info@wlrv.org | 303.543.1411

[Chris]

Ouch, that hurt my eyes, edited to make it readable. ;)

[Rob]

Sorry, I'm at work and didn't have time to make it neat.

[Brody]

That's real nice. Let's all help out so that we can get Subocools rig up and down the hill with nary a bump...or one of the other rigs on the site that normally see grocery store use, like LaDawn's and my Ford Escort. Seems to be the way the FS thinks these days, where 'restoration' means grading the trail to the point of it being a dirt road that EVERYONE can use no matter what they are driving. Refer to Slaughterhouse Gulch, Dakan Mountain Road, and China Wall if you don't catch my drift.

Personally, I am a huge fan of erosion and simply leaving the trails as they are....and not helping the FS grade or 'restore' them. That money is better spent on health, education and welfare rather than being wasted on some dirt road in the forest so that people can drive on it and get a '4x4 experience' with a Honda Civic....sans any bumps, of course.

People that participate in helping with this form of 'restoration' are simply helping to close off 4x4 trails, or make them more accessible to the masses and I am not going to be one of them....nor am I going to be one of the people involved in 'helping' the FS install 'seasonal gates' that close off trails. More trails are getting closed every year, or graded to the point that it is not even worth running them and calling it a 4x4 trail.

I'll help with trail clean ups as picking up trash in the outdoors is something that I have always done trash in the outdoors offends me.offends me. Ditto with combining multiple fire pits into one and putting out someone's leftover fire. Helping to grade or 'restore' a trail, especially when 'heavy equipment' is being mentioned, well, they can get some other fools who can't see their nose in front of their face to do it as I find this offensive, too. I have personally seen what the FS means by 'heavy equipment use' as have quite a few other people on this site.

The obstacle on China Wall was graded to the point that a 68 Impala could casually drive through this area. Not to mention the 'Go Green' approach the FS used when they left all the uprooted and bulldosed trees simply lying by the side of the trail. In other words, it looks like some idiot clowns on their first piece of big equipment and with no thought of the outdoors had used this as a practice run.

For those of you who don't remember Carnage Canyon Boulder, this trail got 'closed' not too long ago as part of a FS 'restoration' project....and reopening it doesn't seem to be in the forecast. Many other trails in Left Hand Canyon have also been closed to motor vehicle use during other 'restoration' projects and now you can no longer drive them either. Without the variety of trails that LHC used to have, the majority of traffic, and it is a heavily used area, is now being directed onto fewer roads.

Carnage Canyon Boulder used to be one of the hardest and closest trails to the Denver Metro area. To me, there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to close this area off. For christ's sake, it followed ROCKS up a ROCKY stream bed and only built rigs could run it uphill. There were no erosion problems, nor were there any major trash problems....The replacement 'Challenge Hill', if it hasn't been finally finished after years of work, may never be open and, if it is opened, will be only used by buggies or super set up rigs...Essentially, you can imply from the FS 'restoration' of anything on LHC, that what they are going to be doing is to persist in closing off more trails, more spur roads and more obstacles as nothing in the history of the FS and LHC leads one to believe otherwise. Big Mother Hill happens to be one of the last remaining obstacles in LHC that offers any sort of challenge, too.

Helping with this kind of 'restoration' project isn't helping you as a wheeler and outdoors enthusiast unless you happen to think that grading and closing trails is a good thing....and if you think that, maybe it is time to sell your wheeling rig and take up competitive needle work......

[Rob]

I wasn't suggesting anyone help with this project. It was for information only, as in you might not want to try wheeling the hill that day. Perhaps I should have just paraphrased it, but I as at work.

[Brody]

And I was merely trying to get people to think before they leap into helping the FS with a 'project' without knowing what it is that they are actually being asked to participate in.......This isn't the first, nor will it be the last, time that information was posted requesting 'help' for trail run "clean ups" or "restoration projects" where the end result was a closed, cleaned, or graded trail.

One of the last times, and this was last year, some clown group that had adopted Slaughterhouse Gulch was whining about help with the trail in conjunction with the FS. End result: Crow Gulch had a "seasonal" gate added and the whole upper section was graded almost flat. The "seasonal gate" hasn't been open since it was installed, making the Crow Gulch a closed trail for anyone but a FS employee...I hope that the folks who helped with that one end up with their legs growing together.....and an endless string of serious problems with their 4x4s...

[Adam]

I was up there on Tuesday. "Big Mother Hill" is closed starting today through the 10th according to signs posted at the Kiosks along the trail.

When we came down BMH, they were already starting to move it around. And it was extremely loose. Not that fun at all. The guy driving the backhoe said they are making the trail narrower and getting rid of all the side "optional" lines. They will be putting in the same wire rope fences that are everywhere up there along BMH. Don't worry, they are keeping the center, most difficult line in tact.

[Haku]

As long as there is no risk of rolling into one of those poles, I applaud this. They could have pulled a Carnage Canyon on it and just closed it completely. After seeing people get all sketchy trying to go across the different lines and stuff, I think having one clear line up it is a good one.

Josh

[Red Rhino]

As long as there is no risk of rolling into one of those poles

When I rolled on BMH I bent two of the poles over like wet noodles. The cables how ever did damage to my front drive shaft.

Bryan

[Haku]

I'm not worried about damage to the rig or to the poles themselves, I'm more worried about them coming through a window or the roof and hurting the occupants. The Challenge Route at the top of Firemans has a bunch of these too and they look like they could be death spikes if you were to roll onto where they are. I just hope they take that into consideration. More important to be safety conscious then restricting travel. For the Challenge route, it would be cooler if they put railings up like they did down in Penrose. Much safer then the short polls and cable.

[Red Rhino]

For the Challenge route, it would be cooler if they put railings up like they did down in Penrose. Much safer then the short polls and cable.

That is a good idea. I have a feeling they won't do it because that makes way too much sense! ;)

[RockyMtnHigh]

As long as there is no risk of rolling into one of those poles, I applaud this. They could have pulled a Carnage Canyon on it and just closed it completely. After seeing people get all sketchy trying to go across the different lines and stuff, I think having one clear line up it is a good one.

Josh

X2, if they wanted to close it they would have done it like Carnage Canyon. I can't imagine that restoration efforts would be that easily done on Carnage to have it re-opened a year later, not to mention by a short staffed and under funded Forest Service and a slew of other trails needing attention. In my honest opinion, they just need to shut that whole area down to the public altogether, it's too close for the redneck, hold my beer and watch this, morons to have a place to go to tear up or shoot their old refrigerators or other junk they have sitting outside their houses.

I hate that place with a passion for just that reason, the way it looks, because of the actions of those few. Anyone who points fingers at the Forest Service for their actions on either closing trails or for their restoration efforts is living with their heads in the sand, they are not the problem, WE (the irresponsible wheelers and outdoor enthusiasts) ARE! If we all took care of those areas and paid attention to what we were doing, there would be no need to restore or close anything.

That argument that the FS is bad is nothing short of saying guns kill people, when in fact people kill people.

What are we suppose to do with the FS if they are not to get involved? Leave it to the individual clubs/groups to maintain those areas? Pfft yeah right, most of them (with the exception of here) can't get past what the other is driving!!!

[Robert B]

Refer to Slaughterhouse Gulch, Dakan Mountain Road, and China Wall if you don't catch my drift. i remember china wall used to be killer and on this past 4th of july i went camping and found out after i went up it that i did china wall in 2WD high range :confused:

[Andrew]

i remember china wall used to be killer and on this past 4th of july i went camping and found out after i went up it that i did china wall in 2WD high range :confused:

Well the wall is still there.....

[Haku]

i remember china wall used to be killer and on this past 4th of july i went camping and found out after i went up it that i did china wall in 2WD high range :confused:

I found PLENTY to have fun with on the Anniversary trip this year. The little rock garden is still there, lots of ledges and such too. They only flattened one route into it, and left the harder part as it was. No complaints from me there.

I am definitely bummed that Carnage is closed, and think they chose the wrong people to shut down. The shooting range is completely trashed now, and no one seems to care from their side. From what I heard, the last trail cleanup (3 days before they closed it) was nearly all wheelers and no one from the shooting crowd. I did talk to a Rising Sun guy who had some interaction with the FS and the environmental groups before it closed, and he said that the "sediment levels in LH creek" thing was legit. Still, I don't see how it could have done all that much, and I also don't see it having gotten much better. Say what you will, but the FS could have handled the situation much much better. The way it went down wasn't cool, but it does seem like they have learned from it.

Still, saying that the Challenge Route is a replacement for Carnage is a bald faced lie. Its waaay hardcore, and high exposure to boot. Rock buggies and the like will be the only ones getting through it, and if you were to roll in the wrong spot it would be a long roll down the mountainside. Plus, too many of those metal poles to roll over onto. Its ok though, we won't be seeing it open anytime soon, as its caught up in engineering red tape for the foreseable future.