[Megashnauzer]

what kind of planning do you do for emergency access to remote areas of a trail? do you create shortcuts every mile or so? do you make the trail 4wheeler accessible? make sure there are maps available to emergency personnel?

 

[redriderbb]

Talk to your local emergency management dept.

What we have always done is just worked with the local EMS, one of their staff is usually a "emergency surveyer" they will come out to your site and inventory the critical response paths. As a "best practices that I have seen here are a few things that really stuck ou to me. Have a really good trail map. Appropriately and acurately sign the trails. Use intersections as meeting and evacuation points, try to get all intersections GPSed. Communicate good emergency practices through signs, your club and a bike patrol. Have the city assign street addresses to the individual trail heads and ensure they are in the 911 data base. I think that building a trail around evacuating the less than 10% of users that may get hurt is selling the trail experience short. Use common sense and try to just think about evacuating folks as easily as possible. Remember most EMS departments are very well trained individuals and most seem to really enjoy backcountry rescues.

Good luck,
Ben

 

[cjohnson]

Good Points.

We have sent maps to the local 911 dispatch, and the local Search and Rescue group. We have very good maps, with each section of trail having a name (and a sign in place) to avoid anybody who is hurt saying, "we're by the rock near the down tree..."

I really like the idea of the "survey."

Charlie

 

[Megashnauzer]

good suggestions. thanks.

 

[roguehoe]

Our backcountry trail intersections..as well as many 'points of interest' are well signed and the signs also have a blue, metal dogtag with a 3 digit number on it. A caller simply tells the EMS / Rangers the number on that dogtag and the rescue personnel know the exact location. Also, some of the wooden bridges are being reconstructed to be wide enough for Search and Rescue ATV's to cross the streams easily.

 

[HypNoTic]

We have the chance to build most of our mtb trails to be usage-specigfic. We design our trail system around a backbone that is accessible by pickup (or ATV). We have access point around each Km so it's easier to manage during the building process, but also much easier in term of risk management plan. Our risk management plan is reviewed with the EMS each year. Some specific spots are ID on the trail and on a custom map we give to the EMS.

 

[bweide]

If your area is really remote or rugged you might want to talk to your EMS contacts about identifying good spots near the trail where a helicopter can land. Then get those points mapped and and GPSed. This increases the likelihood they could do a helicopter evac in poor weather or darkness. On some of the local mountains around here they have identified helicopter landing spots and then glued highway reflectors on the rock to make them easy to find in the darkness.