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Guest Column: Has The National Park Service Found Itself Straddling The Fence On Mountain Biking?

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A multiple use trail for hikers, and possibly mountain bikers, is being cut into this landscape near Panther Junction in Big Bend National Park. NPS photo.

Editor's note: Efforts to cut a multiple-use trail for hikers and mountain bikers at Big Bend National Park have generated ongoing debates over whether creating such trails for mountain bikers in national parks is a good thing. Roger Siglin, who long has followed the Big Bend matter, wonders if the National Park Service hasn't painted itself into a corner over this issue.

As someone who opposed the mountain bike trail construction at Big Bend National Park from the beginning, hiked the proposed route when it was first flagged, and recently hiked it with Jeff Renfrow of the Big Bend Trails Alliance, I have several opinions on the issue. I should also mention my 27-year-career with the National Park Service started in Big Bend in 1966, and I have hiked several thousand miles in the park.

As a hiking trail it is pretty innocuous. I would rate it as little more than a short walk, and it will probably will be the least interesting trail in Big Bend when fully constructed. This doesn’t mean it won’t get some use, particularly if combined with a roadside picnic area since there is none near the visitor center at park headquarters.

It could especially appeal to families with hungry children tired of the long drive from the nearest town, assuming park staff at the visitor center promote it. The park concessioner is also planning to update and improve the adjacent gas station and grocery store. Use will still be limited by high temperatures for about six months of the year. But putting all of that aside, I support completing the construction as a hiking trail since substantial money has already been spent and it would be nice if the public got something in return for its taxpayer dollars.

As a mountain bike trail, it is even more innocuous and probably will not attract many mountain bikers since there are better opportunities both on some of the park’s 120 miles of rough dirt roads and hundreds of miles of bike trails to the west in Terlingua, Lajitas, and Big Bend Ranch State Park. The state park is heavily promoting mountain biking on its 300,000 acres, which I supported in a draft public use paper I prepared several years ago.

Some day there should be another 30,000 acres available in the Chinati State Natural Area west of Presidio, again an area where I outlined several good single-track opportunities in a draft public use plan I authored. There is also no good reason the 23,000-acre Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management area 26 miles south of Alpine could not offer mountain biking on tens of miles of old ranch roads and cattle trails.

In my opinion, the primary reason for the mountain bike trail project in Big Bend (now called a hiking trail until a special regulation is promulgated) is to get the mountain biking industry’s foot in the door to build a stronger constituency for opening up single-track hiking trails in the National Park System to mountain bikes. That includes designated wilderness and lands managed for their wilderness potential by the National Park Service. There is a lot of money to be made by the industries supporting bringing mountain bikers to the parks. This is not to imply that individual mountain bikers themselves are not part of the driving force behind this effort.

There seem to be two visions of mountain biking. One is promoted by IMBA -- the International Mountain Bicycling Association -- as providing access to nature in a healthful way with little or no conflict with hikers, if everyone would agree to get along. The other vision is the one you see on most mountain biking websites. They show bikers riding at high speed on single-track trails, some bermed with jumps, wood ramps, and other construction that provide additional thrills and spills.

What the websites don’t show is other trail users who have been driven off the trails by the antics of the thrill seekers on bicycles. This is not true everywhere, but it is becoming increasingly common where large numbers of mountain bikers congregate, particularly near large population centers. To make matters worse, many state and local parks set aside for preservation of plant and animal communities are being damaged by both legal and illegal trail construction.

Big Bend is remote enough and the rocks and prickly vegetation bad enough that the worst problems may be avoided, but it leads to the main question: what is the purpose of national parks?

The first place to look is the National Parks Organic Act of 1916, which says in part “........which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.”

Congress has reaffirmed the unimpairment part of the act several times. In general, the pendulum has swung back and forth between those who emphasize unimpairment and those who emphasize enjoyment. Not surprisingly, the recreation industry has emphasized the latter, using increasing clout in the current political climate.

The NPS has often been on the fence between the two extremes, but in general has not built facilities for, or encouraged, the more extreme thrills or adventure aspects of various uses. Instead it encourages activities that allow the appreciation of the natural features, including the scenery at a leisurely pace.

I recently rode my daughter’s downhill bike at Keystone Resort. Going down the marked trail I often thought how nice it would be to see the flowers and decided I would prefer hiking the same route. An opposite view was taken by one of your commentators who describes the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands as boring. I guess there was not enough scenery or flowers.

I could go on and on about why I think single-track mountain biking is wrong in the national parks, but I also think the mountain bike fraternity is its own worst enemy. Just look at the websites if you don’t agree. I also think commentators should have to identify themselves with a brief statement. It should greatly improve the quality of the discussions.

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Hi, Roger — None of those. To be precise, and in case I'm misunderstanding your question, I am a paying member of IMBA but not a paid member. I have no financial interest in mountain biking. I am merely an avid mountain biker who feels a strong engagement with the access aspects of our endeavor.

I did note your appeal that people post under their own names, and it is honorable of you to do so and fair for you to ask the same of your correspondents. I prefer not to do so, however, because if I did, I feel that I wouldn't be able to speak as plainly as a nom de plume enables me to do. The cost of that to me, of course, is that it enables people, quite reasonably, to wonder if I have something to hide beyond just my name. The answer is no, but I do have to bear that cost.


Few comments on this website over the years have caused me as much despair as Bill Foreman's. (This will no doubt gladden the hearts of some!) If an apparently avid and talented mountain biker is (as we more militant access advocates would frame it) drinking the Kool-Aid and eloquently expressing a case against any mountain biking in national parks, what hope is there?

The most I can say is that I can't equate, as Bill does, mountain biking per se with "thrills" of the "testosterone-poisoned" kind. I like longish rides with challenging, long, difficult climbs. I descend in a manner that's respectful of others. Based on perhaps 30,000 or 40,000 miles of mountain biking experience, I think that something similar is true of the (I would guess) 99.9% of mountain bikers who don't wear face helmets and body armor. Put otherwise, I suspect that out of every 1,000 mountain bikers, 999 would, and will, ride on National Park Service trails for the values Bill expresses—seeing the scenery and appreciating the wildland setting. Yes, the ride—being on the bicycle—is probably more important to the whole experience than the actual walking is to the hiker (the former being objectively so much more enjoyable than the latter in terms of blisters, aches and pains, insect harassment, and cleanliness, and of course flowiness rather than choppiness). But for almost everyone, the thrill is in the relatively slow-moving unfolding of the experience, one appreciative of the terrain and not a testosterone-poisoned thrill quest.

But there is that one-in-a-thousand mountain biker who is a reckless jerk and whose mode of transportation can endanger others in a way that hikers' can't. I admit it. It would be foolish to deny it.

Still, I think the notion of national parks as outdoor museums, which I gather Bill embraces, is inadvisable even if it is feasible. (I also find it difficult to square with the reality of thousands of RVs and SUVs trundling through the national parks.) If that's going to be the only acceptable model, it's going to spell budgetary trouble for the National Park Service. The Shakers too were pure in their approach to life and death, but they are no more. Wise administrators at the NPS seem interested in avoiding the Shakers' fate, and building the Big Bend National Park trail is evidence of that.


"we members of the HOHA (hateful old hiker association) love our parks to ourselves, and really really don't want to share with the "

No wonder "Zebulon" doesn't want to use his/her real name. Mountain bikers keep repeating this lie over and over, no matter how many times I prove that it is a lie. Bike bans don't keep mountain bikers out of the parks, because all of them are capable of walking -- just like everyone else!

What mountain bikers don't want to admit is that there is no good reason to allow bikes off of pavement. They destroy habitat, create V-shaped ruts that wreck the trails, and drive all other trail users off the trails and out of their own parks. And for what??? Only so mountain bikers can have some cheap thrills and pass through the parks without really seeing anything! Nature is unpredictable, so a mountain biker can't pay attention to anything except controlling their bike, or ther will crash. And often do.

For more information: http://mjvande.nfshost.com/mtbfaq.htm.


"imtnbke", and others who refuse to give their real name, aren't being honest in other ways, as well. "imtnbke" claims that 99.9% of mountain bikers are honorable and respectful. But the science, and our personal experience, says just the opposite. A few years ago, IMBA posted an article on their website describing an experiment where 83% of the mountain bikers broke the law, NOT .1%. When they realized what they had done, they quickly removed the article, because they can't stand having the truth be told. Luckily, I saved a copy of it: http://mjvande.nfshost.com/mtb76.htm. Maybe if mountain bikers would start telling the truth, they would get some respect. But I have never seen it happen in the 18 years I have been following this issue....


As visitorship continues to decline at our national parks including Big Bend National Park what do you suggest be done Mr. Siglin to make the park more attractive to other than the aging, traditional and more ardent fans of the NPS system?


Not speaking for Mr. Siglin, Anonymous, but if kids of any generation are looking for thrills in the parks, they should trying climbing the Grand Teton, floating any number of rivers in the parks (ie Colorado, Yampa, Green, New, etc, etc), spend five hours crawling through Mammoth Cave on a wild cave tour, climbing in Yosemite or Black Canyon of the Gunnison, backcountry skiing, kayaking around Acadia, snorkeling or even scuba diving at any number of parks. If mountain biking is the only way to get the attention of youth, then we've done a poor job of showing them what else is available out there.


A few comments. The atttitude of many mountain bikes is aggressive--not only in defending their activity, but also on the trail. The attitudes I've encountered with mountain bikers is similar to those of other thrillcraft users like dirt bikers, etc. There is even a close similarity in clothing, iconology and demographics. Most dirt bikers are youngish male as are most avid mountain bikers.

The NPS strives to encourage respective comtemplation. Sure you can find examples of where this has not been followed--like snowmobile use in Yellowstone--but in almost all cases, allowing exceptions to activities that are more about pure recreation, speed, and so forth has contributed to a decline in respective cometmplation. That is why with a few exceptions, there are no ski areas in our national parks. There's a place for downhill skiing--but not in our national parks. Ditto for mountain biking and other thrillcraft.

The goal of the NPS isn't to be a theme park or a recreation attraction. Too many mountain bikers--as emplefied by the comments here--do not seem to undertand this difference.

I ride bikes myself, as do many who prefer to have nothing to do with mountain bikes in national parks and other areas (like wilderness areas). There are appropriate locations for some things and activites and inappropriate locations. We make these distinctions all the time in society.

You can go 75 mph on the interstate, but we don't want people driving 75 through the middle of our residential neighbhorhoods. Prohibition against driving so fast in neighbhorhoods is not seen as an "infringment" on the rights of car drivers. We even have pedestrian malls where walkers are favored.

In the same light, i am a staunch proponent of bike trails and lanes in our communities in part because I want to separate the cars from the bikes so it's safe to bike. Similarly, mountain bikes using the same trails as hikers is like the mix of cars and bikes. It's unsafe.


I started with the National Park Service in 1961 and to a lesser degree, continue to today. I was an avid hiker but now MB because of bad feet. I applaud the passion and conscientious and generally well-thought out dialog of the opposing views and understand that neither will convince the other. So, I do not have anything intelligent to add to this issue OTHER than to say that if it were not for the "keep-it-as-a-museum" bunch, you would not be having this discussion today!

If it were not for the "museum" mentality down through the years, those places that we all probably agree are worthy of protection from greedy developers (how much would a lot on the edge of the Grand Canyon go for?) or fence-them-out ranchers (all of Texas is private property except for a few places like Big Bend), would no longer be available for either side of this disucssion. So, sort of like the liberty we often take for granted in this country, I might suggest those who denigrate the "museum" crowd, consider thanking them for making it even possible to have this discussion...


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