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ERTA Frontpage News in KC Star

On Saturday, June 19th, the Kansas City Star featured the Swope Park trails and ERTA on the frontpage! The article by Star reporter EDWARD M. EVELD and photographer GARVEY SCOTT was entitled Volunteers Create Miles of Surprises. Below is the intro and links to the entire article.

Kansas City always seems to be searching for an identity. How about this one: urban mountain biking capital?

What if KC were home to the country's longest middle-of-the-city trail system for mountain biking and hiking, a spectacular series of paths that squeeze through limestone outcroppings, skirt native glades and follow a twisting river route?

Working on it. Volunteer trail builders — with no fanfare and lots of sweat equity — just completed a phase of the planned trail inside Swope Park.

The total project is an urban mountain biking and hiking trail system more than 50 miles long. With perhaps no peer in the United States, it would surpass urban trails in cities considered far more outdoorsy than Kansas City.

IMBA Trail Care Crew Visit A Success

Despite the spring snowfall, the IMBA Trail Care Crew visit was a successful venture for all who attended. Thursday the Crew and ERTA leadership met at Swope Park for an assessment (in the warmth and sunshine).

Friday, the Trail Care Crew (Morgan and Steve Lommele) held a class for 29 Land Managers and Parks employees. Jackson County Parks & Recreation (Missouri), Johnson County Parks & Recreation (Kansas), the City of Kansas City Missouri Parks, the City of Liberty (Missouri), the City of Lenexa (Kansas) and Platte County Parks (Missouri) were represented in this session.

Saturday's session for volunteer trail builders was represented by mountain bicyclists, trail runners, hikers and equestrians totally 43 participates.

A big thanks to IMBA, the Trail Care Crew (Morgan and Steve Lommele), the City of Kansas City for the use of the awesome facilities at Swope Park, all the ERTA volunteers that helped pull this event together and to Earth Riders Mountain Bike Club for providing lunch from Chipotle on Saturday!

click an image to enlarge....

Posted by Matthew Woody

November 21st Workday

It started out early and a little chilly. Cold air from the Missouri River valley seeped into the crevices of Wyandotte County Lake Park and brougt with it the fog. We had a record of 68 volunteers show up to build some new single track and work some on the bridle trails.

The weather slowly warmed through the day and the fog eventually burned off. The sun finally came out towards the end of the day. There were two crews working on the upper and two working the lower trail of Phase One, one crew started the connector trail to the fisherman's trail which is actually part of phase two. We also had a crew lengthening a few of the switchbacks on the bridle trail trying to improve the descent from the old gazebo to the bottom of the dam.

MPRA Award

On Wednesday March 3rd, ERTA President Matt Woody traveled to Lake Ozark, Missouri to receive a Citation Award presented by the Missouri Parks and Recreation Association. ERTA was nominated for this award by the Parks Department from the city of Liberty for ERTA's work at Stocksdale Park. A big thanks to Liberty for recognizing ERTA's efforts! Congratulations to all the ERTA volunteers that have helped with the success at Stocksdale/Walnut Woods.

Posted by Neale Shour

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

With all the rain we are getting as of late, I'm sure you all are just as frustrated with the lack of "trail time" as I am. But it is important that we stay off of the singletrack trails until they are dry enough to ride without leaving ruts and mudholes.

If you are new to mountain biking or trail running the lure of a "mud run" (or ride) might seem like a chance for a different trail adventure or challenge to be conquered, but the damage done to the trails by riding or running in wet conditions can lead to serious erosion problems and lots of man-hours to repair.

One way to keep abreast of trail closures due to weather is to follow KC Trail Status on twitter.com.

To get connected, go to http://twitter.com and follow KcTrailsStatus – its direct URL is http://twitter.com/KcTrailsStatus. As with any Twitter account, you can subscribe to an RSS feed, elect to receive SMS messages, etc.