With the weather changing and getting darker a lot earlier now please remember that the trail closes at dark. We all know that things can happen which will cause your normal 1 hour lap to turn into a 1.5 hour lap but make sure that you have time to complete your lap before dark. The park is nice enough to leave the bike trail open year round but if it is abused that could change.
What brings this up is an incident that I had with a guy taking his 2 (most likely teenagers) kids out on the trail about 30 minutes before dark. My son and I were at the park working on the fire pit for his Eagle Scout Project in the Seven Hills Youth Camp that is beside the start of the trail. The guy passed the parking spots and turned into the youth camp ignoring the Do Not Enter sign then parked in the grass. A park employee that was there with us went and told him he needed to move his car and he did so but not before getting mouthy with the park employee. They then continued to unload their bikes and get ready to ride.
As they were about to start out on the trail I walked over to them to see if they had ridden the trail before. They weren't on Wal-Mart bikes but what they were on could go either way if they actually rode or just hung in the garage and only came out for rides around the neighborhood, not exactly what we are used to seeing out on the trails. I simply wanted to make sure that they knew what the trail was, how long it was, and to let them know that it closed at dark. After my first question of have you ever ridden here before the guy got really mouthy with me and it was all downhill from there. Long story short I advised them that the trail closed at dark and that it was a one way trail for 10 miles of rugged trail that they could not finish before it closed. They continued on the trail and I came to find out later that they ended up bailing out on one of the marked bail out points and rode the road back into the park over an hour after dark.
This is exactly the type of behavior that will ruin the year round trail access for all of us. Please use common sense and follow the rules.
I know that I am preaching to the choir in here and it was most likely not anyone from here that I spoke to, but if you are here I'd like to say that I'm glad that you safely made it off the trail and it was me that passed by while you were loading your bikes back up. I stayed in the park so I could help you if you called in needing it and checked a few times to see if you had made it out before seeing you load up. I do ride the trail frequently, often a few times a week. I have also put in several hours of trail maintenance on the trail and know it quite well so if you had called there are access points where we can get to the trail quickly without having to use the trail. And yes, the park employee that you got mouthy with is my dad. It all turned out ok this time, thankfully.
Doug
