First and foremost, Salida Mountain Trails wants to thank all of our volunteers and partners who have contributed to our trail building, trail maintenance, and fundraising efforts throughout 2017! We’ve had awesome support from the community and have accomplished a great deal!
Our big news is that we have more new trails to build in 2018! As detailed below, we need your ongoing support. IDEA – if you are looking for an end of the year worthy donation cause – we can make it really easy now or anytime during the coming year! We can take your donations online at: www.salidamountaintrails.org/make-a-donation/
2017 Accomplishments:
Trail Construction:
- Received final approval for 10 miles of new trail on BM land. We began work on this with BLM way back in 2013 and are very happy to have finally finished their approval process.
- Rusty Lung Trail – We funded, designed, and constructed this great new trail that provides a new alternative to getting to/from the heart of our Arkansas Hills Trail System via a fun flowy scenic route.
- Dude Abides Trail – We funded, designed, and constructed this awesome new trail that provides an important new connection between North Backbone Trail and the upper stretches of our Arkansas Hills Trail System. This fun and challenging trail provides for a great expansion of loop possibilities for bikers and hikers.
- Hooligan Trail – This new advanced trail that connects Pauli/Unkle Nazty to Upper Sand Dunes, is complete and will officially open this next spring. Needs moisture throughout the winter to firm up the new tread. Is sure to be a crowd pleasure for advanced riders and for longer hikes.
Trail Maintenance – We held monthly ShinDig trail work days and contributed a total of over 700 volunteer hours to maintain many of our existing trails.
Membership Program — Our 4th annual membership party at the Boathouse Cantina Restaurant in May was an overwhelming success. We have around 200 individual and business members for 2017, and via membership dues and auction items we raised $20,000!
Funding — Ray Kitson, owner of The Boathouse Cantina continued this year a voluntary one-percent donation program to benefit SMT’s trail construction efforts. In 2017 alone, this program provided over $19,000! This has allowed us to contract professional trail building services that would not otherwise have been possible. Please show your thanks by frequenting the Boathouse!
Major Events:
- The Run Through Time Marathon – held in March dedicated proceeds from that race to SMT totaling $5,000! Thanks to race directors Rickie Redland and Jon MacManus who continued their tradition of providing proceeds to SMT.
- The 12th Annual Vapor Trail 125 endurance mountain bike race, sponsored by Absolutes Bikes, donated all of its proceeds of $2,500 to SMT.
2018 Plans:
New BLM Trails — We will be working to fund, plan, and construct another 8 miles of approved BLM trails on our Arkansas Hills and Methodist Mountain trail systems.
Funding – In addition to the ongoing Boathouse Cantina voluntary one-percent donation program, the Salida Bike Company will also begin in 2018 a voluntary one-percent donation program – which is awesome news for us! As always, we need continued and ongoing financial support. Our goal is to contract experienced, professional trail builders as often as possible to build our proposed trails, which averages $5 a linear foot, or $26,400 per mile. Based on 8 miles of new trail – this is a lotta dough! We have also applied for a State Trails Grant to fund some of our approved BLM trails – fingers crossed.
Thanks also to our 2017 major partners and supporters (alphabetical order):
- Absolute Bikes
- Amigo Motor Lodge
- Badfish Stand Up Paddle
- Boathouse Cantina
- Bureau of Land Management – Royal Gorge Field Office
- Chaffee County Commissioners
- City of Salida
- GiddyUP! Bike Film Fest
- Harder Diesslin Development Group
- High Country Bank
- Mo Burrito
- Monarch Mountain
- Mt Princeton Hot Springs Resort
- Nord Bicycles
- Pinon Real Estate Group
- Rescue Essentials
- Roxy’s Bottle Shop
- Salida Bike Company
- Salida Mountain Sports
- Soulcraft Brewing
- Subculture Cyclery
- Sweetie’s
- Tony Boone Trails
- US Forest Service – Salida Ranger District
(Lots of major partners/contributors to thank, so hope we got em all.)
Come out and help us in 2018! SMT