I'm just back from the Birkebeiner cross country ski race in Hayward
Wisconsin....and a couple things struck me (besides the fact that it's
snowing like nuts up north.)
1. Whenever I go to a cross country ski race or off road bike event, I'm
struck how many people who live in Minneapolis are into these silent sports.
2. It's too bad all these people have to do their sports outside of the
city, when there are so many potential places for both in the city. (driving
out to Burnsville to off road bike, or out to Bloomington to cross country.)
I'm writing this because I'm interested in expanding both these sports in
the city...and it can be done with very little, if any, money.
Here are a couple ideas...about which I'd love to get feedback:
1. Wirth, which has great trails that aren't always groomed, is barely known
by the cross country crowd. Meanwhile, Phalen and Como in St. Paul...no
where nearly as nice...are real magnets during the winter, for day to day
practices and for special races.
To reestablish Wirth as the premier inner city cross country ski site,
I think we need a race, similar to the ones now held at Phalen and Como.
This one could also include some concessions sales in the awesome Wirth
Chalet, that could raise money for this and other park programs...including
possibly more trail grooming here and in other places like Hiawatha. (This
event shouldn't be hard to pull off...cross country skiers are a really
tight group and if Park Board people let this happen, there are lots of
folks interested in helping.)
2.
With off road biking(I've written about this a bit before here), there is a
good bit of this going on in Minneapolis right now...only it's all illegal.
Throughout Wirth Park, Minnehaha Park, Ft. Snelling, along the River Road,
along Minnehaha Creek...you can see arbitrary trails...some of which are
beautiful and benign, and some of which are destructive to the woods and
cause erosion. Right now we aren't telling bikers the difference so instead
of guiding them to the places that are fine, they are all over the woods and
causing serious problems and endangering people on walks in the woods.
My thought here is that we should work with the Park Board to develop a
single, legal off road trail around the city....telling those into the sport
that we are creating a great place to bike but in return we all have to
police the illegal places to protect erosion. Go here in Wirth, don't go
there. We could encourage the bike shops to support this, just as they have
organized teams of riders to construct make shift bridges that make the
trails so nice on the river bottoms in Bloomington.
For example, a great trail could be layed out using parts of Wirth,
around Brownie Lake, coming down the Cedar Lake Trail into the woods behind
Private Beach and back to the Cedar Lake Trail...up the river to Minnehaha
Falls along paved trails and then onto the trails near the Falls leading
into Ft. Snelling.
By linking off road routes with a few key paved trails, we could have
one of the great cycle trails around and in addition to the recreation
benefit, we could steer bikers to parts of those parks where the biking
won't hurt...away from those that cause erosion.
These aren't the biggest issues facing the city...but these basic quality of
life issues...esp. about the parks...are a lot of the reason why people live
here. We also aren't as aggressive in promoting them as, say, Portland. By
focusing on them we could have even greater use of the parks while at the
same time, protecting them from destructive practices.
Thoughts?
R.T. Rybak
East Harriet
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