Potential paywall issues here, but the article addresses the fire mitigation in the Monument Preserve and the rehab effort led by FOMP (fomp.org). About 65 people showed up to the organized trail day to rehab trails that had been massively impacted by the USFS fire mitigation effort. Addtionally, many hours have been previously spent in non-FOMP efforts to rehab other parts of the Preserve.
That's me in the lead photo...I had a group of 12 people rehabbing the Mad Hatter area, the most popular trail in the Preserve. In places, I could not even find the original trail bed on a trail I have ridden over 500 times.
Anyway, most trails are good to ride. Loads of debris to the sides, falling back into the trail bed, lots of soft spots where the trail was destroyed or rerouted, etc. Things look way different, with very little scrub oak remaining in the area, and tons and tons of small to medium sized evergreens removed.
There are some widely varying opinions of the whole effort...most locals are appalled, including the homeowners who are supposedly protected by this effort. On the other hand the Forest Service is happy with their work: "It’s mission accomplished, said Pikes Peak District Ranger Carl Bauer. “We met our objectives with this, and we’re pleased with the contractor’s work out there,” he said."
Whatever...we are just trying to look forward and rehab where we can and to take advantage of the changes where we can for trail realignment, social trail improvement, etc.
