So thought I'd check out the new parking lot this morning. Drove up about 8;15am. Gate was closed so I rolled back down to my regular spot when I bring the truck. Two district of NV guys roll up and let me know they're opening the gate. Fresh tracks on the parking lot. Haha! The parking lot is nice. Signage says that the gate is open from 9am to 8pm. I thought I'd fire up this thread to provoke some thought. I have a feeling that we might have some growing pains here soon. A few things I'm pondering ..
1. By the time I got back to my truck the lot was almost full. 10:30am
2. Probably half the cars were hikers
3. Heavy traffic up and down that stretch of gravel road
4. Could be time to get serious about signage and designating some MTBK specific one direction trails before there are problems
5. I was surprised that the entrance to Natural High wasn't re open. Maybe it will? Not sure. Easy fix, but it looks like they ran drainage straight at the entrance. Again, easy fix. Always loved that little trail.
6. I've never seen so many hikers on Fromme. I mean A LOT.
I know we are very PC. I mean we're Canadian. It's what we do. I think some trail designation could go a long way. Hopefully really soon. I've had quite a few interesting rides over the last month where I've almost ran over people. One trail runner dude trying to scale expresso smooth as I was going down. That was crazy. Two other times trail hiking groups trucking up expresso. I guess that was the last time I rode it! Haha! Penzoil and Dempsey have commercial dog walkers almost every time I go down them . I'm assuming they will move over to the parking lot now and start using those trails. The last one was a group of four trail runners running up all that beautiful work Old Man Pete put in. Too many blind corners I think to have people running up there.
Not sure what will happen here I don't have all the answers. Thinking it is time to get a conversation going soon though.