Beacon Spokane

[JustRollIt]

Hi,
Could someone from Spokane tell me if Beacon is ride-able/thawed out yet? Will be up there this weekend and I REALLY need to ride. Thanks.

[Gopher]

yep all clear if you want we got a group ride going down sunday your more than welcome to rally

[JustRollIt]

Thanks for the heads up, can't wait to hit beacon. I will be in Spokane Saturday, but thanks for invite. :cheers:

[Gopher]

sweet deal if you want a guide hit me up you might have to bribe my boss's with some cheap beer.

[JustRollIt]

I'm an ex-Spokanite so I know my way around Beacon fairly well. I appreciate the offer for assistance, though. I recently had to relocate to Pullman with my S.O. for her job. Needless to say, the riding here in the winter is pretty much non existant so I have not been able to ride for quite a while. I will probably be spending a fair amount of time traveling to Spokane to ride this summer. I'm on a yellow Transition Preston and my riding buddy is on a black Chumba Evo, so if you ever see us out there pretending we know how to ride feel free to laugh at us and say hi.

[Mike.rider]

I'm an ex-Spokanite so I know my way around Beacon fairly well. I appreciate the offer for assistance, though. I recently had to relocate to Pullman with my S.O. for her job. Needless to say, the riding here in the winter is pretty much non existant so I have not been able to ride for quite a while. I will probably be spending a fair amount of time traveling to Spokane to ride this summer. I'm on a yellow Transition Preston and my riding buddy is on a black Chumba Evo, so if you ever see us out there pretending we know how to ride feel free to laugh at us and say hi.

Ha pullman has plenty of places to ride you just havent found the right people. moscow has some awsome trails and when there is to much snow we shovel and do things like this;

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p112/mikeriderfr/kyleawsome.jpg

send me a PM some time always looking for more locals to ride with.

[JustRollIt]

Not sure if I should post this here or make a new thread. I ended up riding Beacon on Sunday due to the weather being crap on Saturday. Conditions were great Sunday afternoon, wet, but not really muddy at all. Perfect day for riding.

We were near the new section of trail that was built by the IMBA/Fat tires when we saw a group of horses walk by. They proceeded to head right for the DH course area so my buddy went up to them to warn them where they were heading(there were quite a few bikers out there sunday afternoon). He basically just wanted to let them know for their own saftey that it was probably not a good area of the park to be on a horse. According to my friend, they seemed offended and took it as my friend trying to make them leave. So we left and figured it was their problem if someone coming down too fast hit them or spooked their horses. After we got back down to the bottom we noticed that they rode their horses right up the brand new DS course, damaging a few of the berms and much of the lower area of the course. I honestly couldn't believe they would be that disrespectful.

I have always gone out of my way to respect other trail users, especially horse back riders because of the potential for a dangerous situation that could happen due to a spooked horse. I really would like to believe it was a case of them not knowing better but I find that hard to believe. I am sure there isn't much that can be done about the situation now, but perhaps in the future a sign or two warning horse back riders about what part of the mountain they are on would prevent them from even wanting to ride in that area.

[geargrrl]

oh, not good.

Horses in Camp Sekani esp is a really rare thing, though I've seen them up by the radio towers. Usually it's the neighbors as no one would ever trailer them in as there's no trailer parking. I will pass this on to parks, that way if there's any complaints about bikes up there, they'll have a heads up. The future plan is to designate the mountain bike park are as a horse free zone, but that hasn't been made official yet.

Sounds like you did good and thanks for the comments.

gg

[Mike.rider]

well that really sucks, darn horses. I'm sure they took a crap right in the middle of the DS course too. just makes me furious that equestrians have such little respect for other peoples trails. thanks for the heads up now we will have to go fix everything.

[geargrrl]

did any one happen to notice whether there was a horse trailer parked close to the sandpit area ( that would be the only place around there to park one)

[MinorThreat]

I know you and I have talked about this before geargrrl; but I assumed it was a non-issue because of its rarity as you said. Now that it's happened I think there should be some stronger warnings for the equestrian to stay the h*** out of Sekani PERIOD.

The horse lobby is so powerful nationwide that they have managed to help get everyone but them and hikers kicked out of wilderness areas and more. Next to hikers they hold the most ground of any user group; they certainly don't have any call to be poaching on what little is left for the mountain bikers.

I would say that ANY equestrians encountered at Beacon should be encouraged to load up and go elsewhere. Nicely :D

[geargrrl]

I did too - in all my years, this is the first time I've heard of horses on the east end. . I've already contacted "my people" for suggestions what to do. We are pretty lucky in that from an advocacy point of view, the mountain bikers and horse people have had a very good relationship in this region, so they'd respect this, as we all respect the areas in Riverside closed to bikers (right? you all do that, right?) Maybe this can gets Parks to get a little more proactive?? Stay tuned. This is what they pay me the big bucks for, to follow up and deal with this stuff.

[JustRollIt]

We actually did go check the parking lot to see if there was a horse trailer there and there was not. I am pretty sure they came in from the north-ish side.

This is Kyle (slyfoxx) and I was actually going to shoot you an e-mail tonight. I was pretty suprised to see horses there myself and was floored when I saw that they rode up the new DS course. I guess it shows there are bad apples in every group..

[thom9719]

I'm glad I wasn't there when the horses were there. We have enough work to do keeping the courses in good shape due to riders, and I've had bad past experiences with horses. We chased a bunch of motorcycles off the table top on sunday too.

Kyle,

[Mike.rider]

I'm glad I wasn't there when the horses were there. We have enough work to do keeping the courses in good shape due to riders, and I've had bad past experiences with horses. We chased a bunch of motorcycles off the table top on sunday too.

Kyle,

MOTO's too what is the world coming to when major groups are poaching little old mountain bike trails. these people have many local areas to legally ride yet they come to beacon.

[geargrrl]

most of the motos are neighbors who know better.
You can tell them it's a $250 fine for trespassing on a city park.

[scotteric]

hey spokaners, i will be coming east from seattle next monday-wed. hoping to hit up beacon or other local dh/freeride type trails between work. if anyone is available on these days and wants to show me around i'd appreciate it. thanks, scott

[MinorThreat]

MOTO's too what is the world coming to when major groups are poaching little old mountain bike trails. these people have many local areas to legally ride yet they come to beacon.While I wholeheartedly agree with no motos on Beacon; don't lump them in a 'major group.' They were the first outcasts and were thrown of everything before you were born, Mike. In fact, most of the trails on Moscow Mountain were built with the blood and sweat of dirt bikers.

We lost the fight for most everything and got crammed onto a few ORV parks. That's one reason I ride bicycles now.

The surge in recent years of 4-wheel ATVs is probably the only reason engined off-roading is still somewhat politically correct.

[geargrrl]

One does have to be careful about the whole sale lumping of motos as devil spawn. We tend to forget that much of the single track out there on public lands that we mountain bikers ride has been put in by guys tooling around on dirtbikes.

That doesn't change the fact that every single landowner/land manager ( private owners, parks and Avista) of the Beacon area that the Beacon Project has contacted, has specifically said that they do not want motorized users on the land. Hah, try enforcing that.

[Mike.rider]

I forget Internet sarcasm doesnt come through all the time. don't worry guys one of my favorite trial ride (Devils Gulch) was and still is a moto trial.

[MinorThreat]

^^No worries; I wasn't trying to jump down your throat. Being an ex-moto guy, I'm probably just overly touchy about it still.

BTW, my "before you were born" snipe felt weird - - gawd I'm old! It's not fair; I don't feel like I should be.