[syadasti]

:redhot: :redhot:

Fell Mountain at Merli-Sarnoski Park in PA was recently aggressively logged - 90 acres were lost and many miles of trails. All for only $60K and a claim that they were keeping the forest healthy (FYI, most of the NE was clear cut in the early 1900s and so there are almost no old growth forests/large sections of diseased trees not to mention that the trail system does not drain very well after precip - it usually never dries out completely, so forest fire hazards are not valid concerns).

See this thread on emptybeer for photos and more

Porcupine ridge, Twister, Connex, and the twisty ending of the orange are gone. The part of the orange past the lake is still ridable, but it takes you to the mess with nowhere to go from there. That's about another 2 miles that are usless at this point. The begining of the orange trail is OK until the lake. After that, it's not worth riding anymore.
Squeeze play, HR280, Handlebar, My Brothers Trail, Fox rocks, and Blade are OK so far. We figure 20-30 percent is gone and 2 miles of the orange are usless.
For those unfamiliar with Merli:
It's 840 acres of land that the (now dysfunct) Lacawanna Bike Club (LBC) built singletrack on in the mid to late 90's. The "Orange trail" is the main loop that's about 7-8 miles long. The LBC built loops off the Orange over the years that used up a lot of the land that's crunched together. Usually, if you do a side loop, you end up 20-50 yards from where you entered 2 miles ago. The trails are tight, twisty, East coast singletrack! If you dream of the Technical stuff with a climb/decend type of feel, this is your place to ride! We need to STOP the harvesting all together. Please sign this petition. Give them the info of where you're from and how far you travel to get here ONLY if you HAVE RIDDEN HERE!!! If you HAVEN'T RIDDEN HERE, please give them your opinion on ruining the trails (possibly mountain biking diminishing in places that have been timbered). Here's the petition, http://www.petitiononline.com/100041/petition.html Thanks, Rob Gregory

Here, We're really not too concerned about a fire cause the park seems to stay wet for a couple days after it rains. Some bikers don't like how the park "never dries". It's usually damp, which keeps the moisture on the trails. There's a couple areas where it's always wet, but we work around it by puting in new singletrack that goes around the mess (from quads) instead of creating a bigger mess. If there would be a chance of a fire, it will be now. Without the canvas to keep the moisture in and piles of brush all over the ground...
The park officials (Rick Peters and Ann Whitbeck) said whatever we wanted to hear at the park meeting. They claimed it wouldn't be as bad as we thought. Well, we found out from an insider (works for the DCNR) that the park employees are pissed off about the devistation of the park too. They want to attract people to a "park". Most people think of a park as natural, not timbered with junk all over the place.
We have a meeting tomorrow with our State Legislator about it and it happens that he's part of the Environmental Resources and Energy (Subcommittee Chairman on Parks and Forests). So, being this is right in his back yard...
One thing I have to say about the pics is that they don't do the park justice. Until you stand there and turn your body as you're surrounded with brush 360*, trying to figure out were the trails were... Finding one of the old trail markers and finding the trail. You can't even figure out what side of the tree the trail was on. You look around for a couple seconds and you might see another diamond 200 feet away. You can't visualize how to get from here-to-there. You can't crawl over or around the brush. Instead, you go to the assess road to walk around the mess and piles and trees they cut and left there. When you get to the diamond, you still can't fathom the destruction.
The whole valley (about 45 miles long) is over-developed. Approx. 45 long, 2.5 miles wide is 110 square miles... That's 70,400 acres of over-development! The back side of the park has an old stripmine that was an eye sore for Carbondale for years. They took out the old, rusty machines about 10-15 years ago and planted some sort of high grass or something. The park is all that's on the inside of the Northeastern valley that we can look forward to preserving, not timbering. LarryFahn

 

[Skookum]

That sucks... So i suppose since the parks and no official bike org claimed responsiblity for the trails they officially didn't exist therefore nobody is going to be responsible for rebuilding them?

It's very hard work and kinda dangerous moving slash. Here we lose trails frequently at DNR parks as they are "working" forests. Proceeds from timber sales are marked for self sustaining the area and for schools. Seems a little pointless here too since it's always claimed they don't make that much from the sale. i've always suspected somones palm is getting greased in these kind of deals....

At any rate DNR replaces the trail they destroy or are supposed to (some parks better than others).

My question were these legitimate recognized trails?

Maybe you can stop logging there but what's done is done. Hopefully when the tree's start growing back people there are treated to a nice open theater of new growth. Clearcuts to me aren't nearly as bad as clearcuts for development where the land is lost forever. It appears as if with some work things can be worked out and trails rebuilt....

 

[jdcamb]

We are our own worst enemy sometimes. We had a awesome trail around here that got logged (backside of OCP). The harvesters just followed our trail down the hill. We made it easier for them to gain access and showed them the way with our slashes. Who knew??

 

[syadasti]

That sucks... So i suppose since the parks and no official bike org claimed responsibility for the trails they officially didn't exist therefore nobody is going to be responsible for rebuilding them?

The LBC made the trails in the 90s with permission. You could ride almost 15 miles of singletrack with little to no doubling back. Most times we rode there we almost never saw any bikers and it was not rare to only see one or no hikers in all those 15 miles of riding.

I would be willing to do trail building there as its one of my favorite trails anywhere. This trail is at least 150 miles from where I live too.

Before this logging took place there was an online petition with approximately 500 signatures, but it didn't help obviously.