Campus Dakota
Group Memberships => UND Cycling => Topic started by: Sal Atticum on March 09, 2009, 03:09:14 PM
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I was thinking about this last fall a little bit, and I know it probably won't happen, but wouldn't it be pretty cool to have an MTB trail (not a path, and not an ATV rut) along the Red River between Grand Forks and Fargo? This is something that wouldn't need funding, just a series of landowners willing to let people pass through on bicycles (even better, on both sides of the river). You could ride for a day, camp or stay in Hillsboro, and then continue and get picked up on the second day.
It wouldn't be the Mah Dah Hey, but it would be something for riders on this side of the state.
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This is how many if not all of interstate hiking trails work. The trail that goes from NY to ND (pictured along with my bar end) (http://photos-c.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v2564/186/6/736306237/n736306237_1615954_1219222.jpg)
does this. It simply utilizes local laws and regulations to keep the trails (the majority of them) on state owned land. I doubt this would be very difficult if you read the local regulations. Considering there was a pretty big story about how almost 100% of land owners in ND have no mineral rights to their property, I imagine they don't "own" the water, and I imagine there is something like a 500 ft leeway or some crap. If we were discrete enough it wouldn't be an issue. If we were abusive and noticeable, it would become a problem.
Even still... many cyclists get shot this way. Not out of aggression, but simply because so many land owners use their land for hunting as well and shoot before they sight.
Just my point oh two.
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Yes, essentially. My model was the Long Trail in VT, which is primarily through Green Mountain National Forest but cuts through various other more populated places, and of course connects with the Appalachian Trail.
I didn't even know there was a trail from NY to ND. I thought you had made a typo until I looked at the sign more closely.
Keeping close to the water and being "discreet" is one way; getting landowners who would like to go along with such a system might make them more likely to keep such things in mind when they were firing into the brush. Considering how large the land parcels can be in this state, I wonder how many landowners that would be.
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There's a trail that runs from the appalachian trail all the way to the pacific coast trail fwiw. This is the northern one. The one that goes south isn't complete I don't think.
Backpacker did a writeup chronicling this journey... they said there were a few places in the dakotas where a compass was more necessary than a map.
Reading the article just made me feel like killing myself.