Building Partnerships and Trails in Ukiah, California

The Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew partners with cyclists and Army Corps at Lake Mendocino.

Army Corps Ranger Greg (center) showed up on his day off to do trailwork. At first Greg was skeptical about the need for a singletrack when the road was already available. But he learned how a trail can make visitor's experiences safer and more fun than a road.
Because future trail construction will largely be done by convict crews, IMBA's Nat and Rachael and the Ukiah Valley Trail Group wanted to complete a trail segment to serve as a model of sustainable bench cut trail.
Two half-days of trailwork resulted in about 600-feet of new singletrack trail. This new section will be so much more fun to ride than the dirt road!

A newly formed IMBA-affiliated bike club called the Ukiah Valley Trail Group (UVTG) in Ukiah, California took advantage of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew to get a professional trailbuilding education before embarking on a busy season of trail design. With only six months under their belt, UVTG is moving forward in leaps and bounds toward a goal of developing new singletrack opportunities around the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake Mendocino property http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/mendocino/. Due to an open, honest and dedicated partnership with Army Corps rangers, they're already breaking ground.

IMBA's trailbuilding book (Trail Solutions) http://www.imba.com/resources/trail_building/trail_solutions.html promotes gaining permission and developing partnerships as the first steps in the process of designing and constructing new singletrack trails. UVTG took that advice to heart and is now working closely with Army Corps rangers to scope out new singletrack opportunities around the lake. Currently, the property has a very steep and eroded dirt road that wraps around the lake. This dirt road is the main "trail" available to visitors. UVTG is changing that by designing a slew of reroutes that bypass the steep sections of the road. The goal is to eventually have a trail circling the lake that is 90-percent singletrack and open to hikers, mountain bikers and horse riders. The Army Corps is doing what they can to speed the process by giving UVTG the opportunity to design the trail. The Army Corps plans to follow-up by hiring convict crews for trail construction.

In 2002, IMBA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed an agreement to partner on trail projects across the country.

View IMBA's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Resource Page.