Working together

Oct 10 2011

Moab, a resort town in southeastern Utah is well known worldwide for its National Parks, (Arches and Canyonlands), the stunning red rock sand stone formations with natural bridges and arches, its famous white water on the Colorado, like Cataract Canyon and Westwater, the classical western movies filmed here in the 50ies and 60ies and lately for the vast trail system of mountain bike trails. The famous slick rock trail is known among mountain bikers everywhere. No other state has more public trails than the state of Utah and a very large amount of these public trails are within the greater Moab area.

Photo credit: Patitucci Photo

Professor Valley, Moab.

Moab got its name from the ancient land east of the Dead Sea. Nowadays within the state of Jordan. This area also displays red sand stone rock formations, canyons and deserts.

The original Moab

Global Endurance Training Center opened this training facility in this area not only because of its stunning scenery, but also because of that vast trail system, ideal for conditionning endurance horses.

Trails are ever diminishing in the USA. Therefore AERC has an active trails committee, trails advocate are working hard to keep equestrian trails open. But horse people are not an island. Trails users of all kind need to work together to keep trails open and create new ones for hikers, runners, bikers, horse riders and, yes, for motorized travelers as well. Trails get closed for motor bikes first, then mountain bikes, then horses, then foot travel. We all loose. Don’t kidd yourself, a trail closed for motorbikes is a loss for the horse riders as well.

Endurance riders/racers in particular, need more trails than many other trail users. We do have the most at stake. At Global Endurance Center we see the dangers and we are doing everything we can to work on trail issues locally.

The trails within the Moab area attract many people with a multitude of transportation means and tools. Where there are multi use trails, there are inevitably conflicts.

Being proactive, the county community created a unique Committee, Trail Mix, a group of interested trail users and advocates, who meets monthly to discuss trail usage, maintenance, problems, new trail proposals. This group consists of trail advocates for:

-Hikers/runners

-Skiers

-Mountain bikers

-Road bikers

-Equestrians, endurance riders and Backcountry Horsemen

Representatives of BLM, National Forest Service, National Park Service and Motorized Trail Users are joining these meetings to work together for the benefit of trails and trail users.

Example of a motorized trail user.

Global Endurance Training Center has for many years supported Trail Mix and Christoph is a committee member representing all equestrian activities.

TrailMix of Grand County, Utah, could be a model for the national trail problems we are encountering across the country. Here in Grand County, we are not only keeping trails open, we are constantly planning new trails,opening new trails, mapping and maintaining them. Every year, we are increasing the vast network of trails. Equestrians alone could not do it, only the joint effort of all trail users is getting these results.

Here is just one example of maps, here for mountain bikers and motorized travel:

The key is to work together, to learn and understand each others desires and needs. Because of TrailMix, all trail users work together in harmony and respect each other on the trails.

At GETC, we ride and train horses every day of the week. We cover hundreds of miles on our horses. I cannot even remember the last time we had a trail conflict with a biker or motorbike, it just doesn’t happen anymore.