This story in the Marin Independent Journal says the momentum is growing:
State officials Thursday convened a discussion with bicycle, hiking and equestrian advocates and others at the Pan Toll parking area on Mt. Tam to discuss opening the 0.6-mile Easy Grade Trail to mountain bikers.
The short trail has importance because bicyclists now must use Pan Toll Road and tangle with cars to get to the Mountain Theater and the top of Mt. Tam. Opening it would also close a gap in the Bay Area Ridge Trail, which seeks to connect a 500-mile route that would be open to hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers.
Marin-based Access4bikes – a bike advocacy group – approached state parks about a plan to open four trails in Marin more than a year ago.
“There was some good merit to some of (the plan),” said Dave Gould, superintendent of Marin’s state parks, who studied the proposal and has brought in state park trail specialists to see what would and wouldn’t work.
Other trails being discussed include: McKennas Gulch Fire Road on Mt. Tam, a 2.5-mile stretch to Stinson Beach; Bill’s Trail, a 2-mile loop in Samuel P. Taylor State Park; and the Mount Burdell Trail in Olompali State Historical Park, a 5-mile trail up the mountain.
A modicum of hiker hysteria is mandatory:
But Vesa Becam, a Tamalpais Conservation Club board member, still worries about bikes and hikers mixing it up on any version of Easy Grade.
“It’s a trail that families with small children use, and no matter how careful a biker is, if they are just going a little too fast how do you get out of the way? It is a safety thing,” she said. “A jerk on a bike can get someone hurt; a hiker who is a jerk is just a jerk.”
I think I may get that last part stamped on a T-shirt.
“a hiker who is a jerk is just a jerk.”
Well, not necessarily:
The Trouble With Trundling
Damn, that’s a sad story. We have all thrown or dislodged rocks over cliff faces. I wonder what drives this mostly male urge? . . .some genetic holdover maybe from our desperate early rock throwing pre-tool hunter days. I for one will never throw another rock out into a canyon or down a cliff side again, not that I ever did – but as the tragic tale of accidental death by trundling in the Lander, Wyoming canyon makes clear, it only takes one solitary moment in a bizarre, once in a billion chance for something so preposterous to actually happen, but happen it can and will and, sadly, did.