OHV, mountain bike trail work continues this summer

Cyclists and ATV enthusiasts should have more trails to enjoy in the Lincoln area by the end of the summer as the Beaver Creek Trails Project continues to move forward.

The project, funded by an $82,000 Montana State Parks Recreational Trails Program grant that was awarded to the Lincoln Ranger District, got its start last year with district personnel designing, flagging and cutting corridors for about eight miles of mountain bike trails and for a series of connector ATV trails that will create looped routes from the Lone Point area to Lincoln Gulch to Beaver Creek.

Lincoln Ranger District Resource Specialist Josh Lattin said dozer work on the ATV trails should start this week.

"(The contractor) should be here two, two-and-a-half weeks building that," Lattin said. "That will kind of rough it in. The dozer doesn't really do the finished product because it's a dozer, but we'll go in with the excavator."

Lattin said once the trail is roughed in, they need to build a couple small bridges across the Lincoln Ditch and install some drainage features, but he said they hope to have most of the ATV trails open to riding by midsummer.

"We'll have to have a couple storm events on fresh dirt before we open up, otherwise it just falls apart on you," he said.

Lincoln has a good ATV trail network, but much of it is on old roads or road-to-trail conversions. Lattin said the new Lincoln View Trail - in addition to providing "spectacular" views of the Lincoln Valley - will be a true trail; narrower, with some tight turns, and steeper grades and changes in pitch.

Lattin said the Upper Blackfoot Off Highway Vehicle Association has been working with the Forest Service and will help to finish the trails. "In the future, as that group gets some momentum, it will be a big help maintaining things," he said.

The big construction project on the trail, a bridge across Beaver Creek, won't begin until late summer, so Lattin said riders won't be able to use the trail to access Pine Grove campground this year, However, he said they will be able to exit out Lincoln Ditch Road to Beaver Creek Road until the bridge is open.

The historic aspect of the Lincoln Ditch is something Lattin would like to highlight.

"There's a spot where you cross it near the top of Lincoln Ditch Road where we're bridging it...I think it would be great to have a panel up there to talk about what it was, why they built it," he said

The Lincoln Ditch dates to the mid-1860s, during the mining heyday in Lincoln Gulch. With little running surface water in Lincoln Gulch miners had to bring in enough flowing water for their operations. They accomplished that with a hand-dug. eight-mile-long ditch that carried water down from the man-made Reservoir Lake, which is filled by Arrastra Creek.

On the mountain bike side, there are two trails going in. The lower, more family-friendly trail should be completed this summer, Lattin said.

"Construction on that should start at the beginning of June," he said. "The lower trail corridor is all cut out, ready for the contractor to come in."

Lattin explained that construction of mountain bike trails takes more time than ATV routes.

"It's a narrower trail. They use a (mini excavator), rather than a dozer. It's kind of a slower machine, but they also do a more finished product," he said. "When (the contactor) walks away from it, it's pretty well done, compared to the dozer where you have to come back and fine tune it."

Since the lower trail is mostly rolling terrain, without steep side hills for the mini-ex to navigate, Lattin expects to see that one ready by the end of the year. He said about half of the more technical upper trail should done by the end of the season, but he said the trail won't be fully finished until next summer.

The mountain bike trails that are being developed were included in the Forest Service's Blackfoot non-winter Travel Plan. They began as part of an International Mountain Bicycling Association study commissioned by the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce in 2009.

The new single track trails will be the first dedicated mountain bike trails in the Lincoln areas, and will provide an alternative to Beaver Creek Road for riders on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The GDMBR brings riders into Lincoln every summer, most notably during the annual Tour Divide race from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells N.M.

Lattin credits the broad support from motorized and non-motorized groups as well as from local collaborative organizations such as Envision Lincoln and the Upper Blackfoot Working Group for getting the trail project off the ground. Envision Lincoln dedicated $10,000 of the $100,000 LOR Foundation grant received in 2017 as matching funds for the RTP grant.

"Just having that group, that letter from Envision Lincoln signing on, you had so many different interests right there, just in that one group," Lattin said.

Lattin said there are other trail projects related to the travel plan in the works as well. Among them are the development of OHV trails in the First, Second and Third Gulch areas, and in the Mike Horse area. Those trails are waiting the completion of other projects, including road decommissioning and the Upper Blackfoot Mining Complex mine remediation.

"I figured if we get one area opened up a year, we're showing progress," Lattin said. "We'll get Beaver Creek opened this year. Hopefully next year we get First, Second and Third (gulches), and the Mike Horse."