The open-to-mountain-bikes trail
in Saguaro National Park

Some 15 years ago I wrote:

In this day of man's increasingly mechanical approach to the outdoors, when thousands experience nature not for what it is through observation but as a playground, there aren't many places left where one is guaranteed one won't be run over by a jeep or snowmobile or mountain bike. Preserving those areas — at the cost of a disgruntled few — seems worth the price.

My feelings, years and hundreds of conversations later, remain the same.

I support the Sierra Club policy of"trail studies first, then official openings." Why? Simply because of the damage that can be done to some environmentally sensitive trails, and more especially to fellow trail users on the busier, near-urban routes. My Forest Service friends contend they have enough to do as it is, but I believe it would not be impossible, in say a year to eighteen months, to determine the status of at least our most-used trails.

	State Your Case This is a divisive topic. What do you think about trail conflict (hikers versus bikers)? Do you think that bikes hurt our national forests?

Last summer, while pedaling past leviathan cactus on Saguaro National Park's officially designated mountain bike trail, I thought of how impossible it would have seemed back when"all-terrain bikes" were born that we would ever be pedaling — off-road and legally — in a national park. That's progress, and we have good people on all sides of the issue — rangers, government bureaucrats, level-headed non-bikers, bike organizations, and all of us disorganized but responsible individual bikers — to thank for it.

Unfortunately, we will never progress to the end of trail conflict. There will always be occasional kamikaze bikers screwing it up for the rest of us. And sorehead hikers and equestrians who'll hate us even when we're on legally open trails and pedaling responsibly.

But don't let it get you down. Mama never told you life was perfect.