Horse Poop

[Bigpuddin67]

Is there any trails at SWK that horse traffic is not allowed? I have seen some deep horse shoe ruts!

[Jeff Hanson]

No.  Horses are, and my guess always will be, allowed on all trails.  Althought mountain biking has become the dominant activity, SWK probably would never have come into existence if not for horse riders.

Learn to love them, because the quickest way to close those trails to mtb's is fueding with the horse riders. Just think of it as constantly changing technical sections! 

[Principal (Snake) Skinner]

The city designates the whole park as multi-use, equally accessible by all users. They don't necessarily cheer when there's hoof damage, but from their standpoint horses don't corner the market on misusing the place (bandit trails, paintballers, backwoods fire pits, discarded condoms, ...). And with no ability to continually monitor the trails, they pick their battles. Enforcing user-specific trails isn't one they see winning. The trail system there is just too small to expect any one user group to only use an even smaller subgroup of trails.

From time to time, it's just necessary that we get off the bike, toss a few rocks into any hoof craters, stomp them in tight, and ride on.

[tihsepa]

Every horsefolk I have ever meet out there were good people. Be curtious and deal with it.

[Red Snail Racing]

Personally I find the horse poop an inconvenience, but no big deal, learn to hop it and in a few days it will be gone, just don't center punch a fresh pile.  That's bad. (and for Pete's sake, keep your mouth closed if you do hit a pile)

The larger issue is horses tearing up wet trails.  This is a matter of education.  At Palos, CAMBr has been working very hard at educating the riders that riding wet trails damage them and like all trail users, they should keep off them as well.  While not being a complete success, there is much better awareness at Palos and the trail damage from horses has diminished. (So just as I'm saying this some exception will ride Palos today and post hole the trails, as it always seems to work that way.)  So the answer is education, not just from CAMBr but from the OPD as well. There will always be a group of riders, bike and horse, that just don't care and will do what ever they wish, but with better communication, I believe we can cut down on trail damage, form equestrians and bandit trail builders.

We will continue to work with all users groups to further the education of trail usage and user respect.

[tihsepa]

Is there any trails at SWK that horse traffic is not allowed? I have seen some deep horse shoe ruts!

I think you can take some poop home if you wish.

[machinetwelve]

That's Not Horse Poop, that's what they call "Hero Dirt"