HRATS 2019 End of Season News Letter

By White Lotus Media on November 27, 2019 • ( 0 )

Hello Everyone,

The weather has turned and our amazing fall riding is disappearing. So it is time for a year-end wrap-up.

HRC Recreation Trail Manager Job Posting.
The failure of the Hood River County tax measures in May put a real scare in all of us but luckily Hood River County has found enough money to hire a Recreation Trail Manager. A link to the job posting is below. The money is coming from a company that needs an easement for buried fiber optic cable. This position will have a significant impact on Post Canyon and the other recreation trails within Hood River County. Along with OHV grant funds, the county trail program is funded through July 1st, 2021. Hood River County’s goal is to make the trail program self-funding by then. HRATS is promoting this job so that we can get a great set of candidates so a great person is hired.

Applications are due Dec. 9th.

Please help spread the word for this position. The pay is good and it has benefits.

Click to access TreeFarmRecManagerPosting11-2019.pdf

Off-Season Riding
Please do not ride on trails that are too wet or have Freeze-Thaw condition. All of the local non-moto trails are built and maintained by volunteers. Please do not ruin their hard work.

Here are a few guidelines:
• Cold clear nights freeze the ground. When it thaws during the day the trail surface becomes pudding. Do not ride them.
• If the mud is constantly sticking to your tires or bike. Do not ride.
• Riding trails with lots of puddles is not good for the trail.

The trails at Syncline are far more ridable in the off-season.

2019 Review
The 2019 Trail Highlights were:
• Opening Eldorado (Eldorado was a two year $35k project that we are thrilled to have open)
• Fixing and enhancing Gary Paasch’ Extended Play area.
• Funding Douglas Johnson’s great work on Dropout.
• Greg Schutt’s Upper 8-Track Reroute is open and beautiful. Trailforks.com calls it “Uptrack”.
• Overhauling Mitchell Ridge’s “Super Berms” with a 160 person super work party.
• 8 – Amazing work parties.

All 2019 work parties had great attendance culminating with a massive 160 person work party at Mitchell Ridge. Thanks, to all those that came out to work hard.

Also thanks to the businesses that got involved.
• pFriem
• Thunder Island Brewing
• Dirty Fingers
• Post Canyon Coffee.

Additionally, a simple bike work stand with tools was installed at the Seven Stream kiosk. Thank you to Mt. View Cycles for Donating it. Thanks to Oregon State Parks for letting HRATS spruce up the Seven Streams Kiosk and work on Mitchell Ridge which is on State Property.

Lastly, HRATS supporters came through in spades this summer and fall funding wise. The three fall events (HR Double Mt, PDX Double Mt and the concert at the Ruins) raised about $28k. Thank you! This does not include other donations. About $8k of this money has already been put back into the trails during fall trail work. Because of people like you, HRATS is currently is getting to a strong financial position.

HRATS thanks the countless businesses and volunteers that made these events possible.

HRC Budget Issues
This summer, indications were that user groups like HRATS would have to help fund the Recreation Trail Manager position. Currently, Hood River County is not asking users or groups to fund the recreation trail manager position. HRATS supports Hood River County’s goal of making the Recreation Trail Manager position self-funding. HRATS is currently working with Hood River County on what else is needed.

It is unlikely that Hood River County will have funds to build and maintain non-moto trails. This means Hood River County primarily needs HRATS to fund the building and maintaining non-moto trails. HRATS is happy to do this.

HRATS is also looking at long term needs for local trails. New trail network ideas are being discussed as well. Possible areas are:
• Eastside
• Middle Mt.
• Connecting Surveyor’s Ridge to the east of Hood River.

Lastly, the protection of Family Man always needs to be on the table when long term goals are discussed. None of the above will happen quickly, but with support like HRATS supporters showed this year, great things will happen in the future.

For this reason, we need to continue this momentum into the future. Please continue to attend work parties, events and donate.

Thank you for all of your support! Have a great off-season,

Tim Mixon
HRATS President