May newsletter

Spring social at Soulcraft  
Join us Wednesday 5/11 from 6-8 p.m. at Soulcraft for a casual kickoff to the 2022 trail season! We’ll share short updates about what we’re working on, but this is primarily a chance to hang out and catch up. The event is free to attend, though you’ll be able to donate, join SMT or renew membership on site. (Of course, you can always donate here or join/renew here anytime.)
Dream On now dreamier 
This week, we welcomed New Mexico-based EcoServants to town for some training with our pro trail maintenance manager, Cat. The youth corps put in some serious work on Dream On to re-establish the tread, improve drainage, and clean up the trail corridor, all while retaining the trail’s rugged character. The crew did a tremendous job. We hope you like the improvements!
Elsewhere in the SMT network… 
Cat has been training lots of local Trail Stewards lately too, and it shows. Among other trails, Burnpile and Rise-N-Shine are in sterling shape thanks to recent work. As a tiny nonprofit, we lack the resources of some bigger trail organizations. So last fall, we doubled down on training volunteers to improve their skills, efficiency, and autonomy. The result: More and better trail work throughout our network. If you see someone working on a trail, please give ‘em a big thank you for their commitment!

Want to volunteer? Sign up here to be a Trail Steward.

Clean Up Green Up: Saturday, May 21 

Help us pick up trash on Colorado Public Lands Day! The Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) and Greater Arkansas River Nature Association (GARNA) are leading the 31st annual Clean Up Green Up on Saturday, May 21. You can sign up for a specific site—including one of three near our trails: Burmac, and downstream of the Salida boat ramp on river left and river right—or be assigned anywhere along the Arkansas River from Granite to Cañon City. See all the clean up sites and sign up here.

Save the date: June 4th (National Trails Day) 

We’re planning a big ShinDig/volunteer event for the Rainbow Trail in collaboration with our partners at Central Colorado Mountain Riders. To be held in conjunction with National Trails Day, the work will include general maintenance and other work to repair damage from fires and rainstorms. Stay tuned for more info, and for now mark your calendars for June 4th.

Confused about e-bikes? 

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about e-bikes since the Forest Service’s new directives came out. The short version is this: E-bikes remain prohibited on all SMT trails. The longer version is the BLM and FS both now have guidance—though not identical guidance—for permitting e-bikes on more trails. For more on what exactly this means, Singletracks has a good article about the issue here. IMBA also recently released this FAQ. And if you want a longer explanation about what this means for SMT, you can find that here.

Questions? Comments? Let us know: info@salidamountaintrails.com