By Carol Godwin, Cycle Mania

Happy Spring! Let’s go ride, it’s sunny, trails are dry and…oops, never mind, it’s snowing.

Spring in the White Mountains is a fickle thing. Science says it was the first day of spring a few weeks ago, but Nature has a way of playing with our emotions by giving us warm days long enough that we start to put our winter clothing away and begin dreaming about starting seeds. The feed stores tempt us by filling galvanized tubs with adorable peeping chicks and Easter just keeps adding fuel to the fire with pics of baby bunnies frolicking in fields of green grass dotted with flowers, fluffy white lambs and waddling ducklings. But…don’t be fooled.  

Here in the White Mountains, its not spring until the March winds blow in the April showers and the first May flowers have bloomed. The local lore is that you shouldn’t plant until the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear. I generally try not to plant any sensitive garden plants until June and despite my best efforts to restrain myself, I usually fall prey to the intermittent balmy days of spring and end up losing a few early attempts at planting to late freezes. I’ve spent more than one frigid night racing around in a bathrobe trying to save the plants I mistakenly left out, not thinking it would freeze. Oops!

What’s an outdoor person to do when trails are muddy, meadows are brown and even gravel roads are either icy or muddy?

Cut your losses: March winds combined with April showers equals downed trees. The saturated ground has a tough time supporting the weight of wind-blown and/or snow-laden trees and many spring storms result in windfall trees. I recently traveled the Land of Pioneers trail looking for trees blocking the trails. There were quite a few that needed cutting and moved and most of them were cut easily using the portable folding saw I routinely carry in my pack. Bigger trees can be marked and cut with a chain saw once the trail dries enough to travel on. Everyone can help keep our trails cleared and early intervention prevents people from creating work-around trails when the season really begins.

Rock and roll: Here’s an activity that can keep kids happy on a hike. Go on a rock hunt. Rocks in trails are hazardous to hikers, bikers, equestrians and anyone else out there on the trail. Be sure to throw rocks off on the downhill side so that they don’t just end up rolling back to the trail. The challenge for kids is to find a few prize rocks and then bring them home to decorate and return to a trail with rock art, like the Buena Vista or Woodland Park. Kind of an Easter egg hunt all year-round!

Smooth sailing: The elk and other wildlife can really damage muddy trails. We’ve found that fat bikes easily smooth the tracks right out of the trail when its just a bit wet for riding with regular tires. This has got to be the easiest trail repair work duty of all! All you need to do is ride your big tires over the trail at the perfect Goldilocks time of year (not too wet, and not too dry) and you leave a smooth clear trail bed behind you.

Just a trim: I carry clippers with me as spring growth begins in earnest. Clip fresh leaders that are encroaching onto the trail before the plant expends too much energy into growth in the wrong direction. If you are hiking, remember that the head of a cyclist is quite a bit higher than the head of a hiker and the head of an equestrian is higher still, so clear and clip accordingly to keep the trails usable for all. I have found that areas that have experienced a prescribed burn need a lot of trimming as trees which previously lined the trail in an orderly upright fashion, now, once burned, bend unpredictably into the trail, needing pruning as they begin to grow again.

Mud, mud, go away: No matter how tempting, please do not ride wet trails. If you are leaving tracks, its too wet. The Snowflake trails are usually dry much sooner than the high country trails. Trails generally dry in ascending order: Snowflake, Buena Vista, Panorama, Land of Pioneers, Los Burros.

TRACKS organizes trail work days and gets our trails into great shape for summer. Join TRACKS and participate in their work days, or when out working trails on your own, log hours so that you can be a part of the end-of-year volunteer hours total, important for grants in the future. All White Mountains trails users, local or seasonal, should join TRACKS so that we have a large base of both passive members and active participants to assist in having a strong united vocal voice in the use of our public lands. https://trackswhitemountains.org/

Save the Buena Vista Foundation (https://stbvf.org) concentrates on the upkeep of existing trails in the Buena Vista/Secret Trails area and members can sign up to be the stewards of trail sections. Please keep track of volunteer hours and report them to TRACKS, as TRACKS is the official trail maintenance organization of the White Mountains and coordinates efforts with the USFS. 

Spring will come eventually. Here’s hoping we get enough moisture now so that the forest stays open all summer. Group rides will start in the middle of April as soon as the Buena is dry. See you then!