The National Parks: America's Best Idea

My Review of 4500

Trek

4500

Does whatever I ask it to do.

Trailpatrol Zimmerman, MN 6/18/2009

 

4 5

Pros: Good Geometry, Handles Well, Durable

Cons: Uncomfortable Seat, Poor Tires

Best Uses: Technical Riding, Single Track

Describe Yourself: Avid Cyclist

I use this bike as a park ranger and a volunteer National Mountain Bike Patrol member. Added a new seat and tires and it is good to go, wherever I want to go. Singletrack, sandy trails, hardpack. I love the geometry of Trek's MTB frames. Now if I could just get it with a SRAM X-7, that would be MTB heaven!

CAMBA Singletrack patrol, Cable, WI

: Picture of Product, Using Product

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The Greenest Machine

I have used a mountain bike on patrol for over 15 years. One of my best friends visited us on his way from the west coast to the east, and had one in his truck. Shortly after that, I found one of the gurus of police cycling in the US, was an officer in our local police department. That revelation was followed by the selection of a new Park's Director who told the chief that he wanted a bike patrol. I became the first lead Bike (and ski) Patrol ranger. Today, with a different agency, I still patrol by bike, usually putting 5 to 10 miles each day, on the Trek 4500 that the Backcountry Trail Patrol provides to the park. It allows me to be stealthy when I need to, and also to be visible and more approachable than when I patrol by truck. On the bike, I can go places the truck can't fit, on trails that would leave it stuck. I can stop and talk with campers, beach goers, and fishermen. I hand out Smokey Bear buttons and tats to the kids, and sneak up on the teens with beer in the walk-in sites. We have used bikes successfully in an actual search and rescue mission, and while wearing a different hat, I have ridden bikes providing medical support at major sporting events in our area.

The National Park Rangers patrol on bikes in some of the country's grandest parklands; Yosemite (at right) and Grand Canyon to name two. Bikes provide freedom of mobility, save on gasoline and present a softer, friendlier "Ranger image". It also helps us to stay in better shape and provide a better level of community involvement and service.

From that meager beginning, 15 years ago, bikes have become a hobby and fun family activity. I have two road bikes and a mountain bike, and try to take at least one overnight, solo bike trip each year.

Grooming the Dunes Again

I didn't blog last week's grooming because I was so ticked. I had spent another 4 hours grooming and then went back to base to drop off the groomer. Then I went back to the Dunes to ski, and in two hours time two people and their dog had hiked on the trail! New signs, like the one at left, went up the next day.

This week, I wasn't even done grooming, and I came back through to find footprints on the freshly groomed trail. In both instances the offending parties were "geocachers"; People who use a hand-held GPS to locate a container with smal prize items which they then swap out. It is a good activity that gets people out in the woods, and I do some of it too, but when we listed the 2 caches I placed in the rec area as "Winter Accessable", we meant with skis. One guy even dickered with me via e-mail about walking on the edge of the groomed trail as being not on the ski trail. I informed him that a conservation officer or ranger might take a very different view than what he believed.

Grooming this week went very well. I don't know how many more times we will have good enough conditions to groom the trails, but the last few time have been really good, except on some of the hills facing south, at the south end of the rec area. As they say (Whoever "they" are.), "The proof is in the pudding", so I went out and skied for almost 2 hours. Knowing that the good conditions won't last forever, I pushed myself a bit, and did a few extra kilometers.


For a Tuesday, there were a good number of people out on the trails skiing. I was encountering them from time to time as I groomed, and then on ski patrol later. Mark, my supervisor, who did some touch-up grooming at our base, Lake Maria State Park, said they had a good stream of skiers in the park yesterday, too. It seems that I'm not the only one who knows that by the end of the month, we may all be back on our bicycles. A couple of our trail patrol members were really thrilled with the conditions at Lake Maria. All I could say was, "What have I been telling you for the past three years?"

Well, the sun is shining. It's 28 (F) degrees out. I'm off today...Guess what I'm doing???

Trailpatrol

Grooming Sand Dunes

(These opinions do not represent the positions or opinion of the Minnesota DNR, it's divisions or employees. They are solely the opinions of the author, and are posted for the education and information of trail users.)

Catchy title, huh?

I spent four hours grooming the ski trails at the Dunes today, breaking up the crust that formed due to the warm weather, and the trails packed down by illegal snowmobile use on the ski trails. We also put up a barrier that we hope will discourage the trespassing by snowmobilers, and have been working with the sheriff's office, the conservation officer and the local snowmobile club. I think that a lot of people, regardless of whether they are on snowmobiles, skis or on foot, don't realize the amount of work that goes into preparing a trail for use. As I said, it took four hours today to prepare five miles of ski trail to an acceptable level for use. It's not perfect, and it will likely deteriorate as the weather stays warm, but for the moment, the trails are in as good shape as they can be. I know...After I groomed them, I skied on them myself. (Love making first tracks!) Even the local snowmobile club spends hours and hours grooming their trails. The have two big snowcats, and usually they are out grooming all night long. As a groomer, I find it very interesting to watch, even if I am not a snowmobiler. A lot of time and effort goes into grooming, which is why it is so frustrating to have somebody go through and ruin it all, whether it is hikers, dog walkers or snowmobilers on the ski trails, or horses on the snowmobile trails.

I used to find it irritating when skiers complain about leaves, pine cones, needles or animal tracks (particularly deer) on the trails. Now I just find it amusing. I mean it is a forest, people. The critters live there, the trees grow there, and then we come in and build trails there. You are never going to have a pristine trail in a "natural" setting. The leaves, the cones, needles, deer, squirrels, fox, pine martens, rabbits and such, are all part of the forest ecosystem. They are part of the "experience" of the wild, but active, sustainable, working forest that is Sand Dunes.

By the way, I often get asked, even in the dead of winter (Like today.), "Where are the sand dunes?" Just look down. You're standing on them. Back in the Dust Bowl days, the area had been over-farmed. The state took over the land and started reforestation to prevent erosion, and produce marketable timber. The Uncas Dunes Scientific and Natural Area, just south of the Anne Lake Campground, is being restored to it's original state, but it will take a number of years to get there. Sorry, no "Lawrence of Arabia"-style dunes here!

Get out and enjoy the trails. Hopefully next week, we'll get some snow.

Trailpatrol

A Change in Direction

I have a number of interests, spanning a unique spectrum from Wilderness Medical Care to Celtic Monasticism to being a Park Ranger, and lots of things in between. One of the things that I have been wondering about this blog, is what direction it should go. I also have a large number of websites and several blogs about various topics, as well as pages on MySpace and ShoutLife. But this place is supposed to be somewhat unique. What should go here other than occasional pages from the ongoing story of "The Ranger of Mill Forge"?

The blog needs to go "back" to the "backcountry". The issues and the action that effects the users of our wildlands, from wilderness medicine to the ranger's role; winter camping to trail care and building.

So, starting now, hopefully the entries will come a bit more regularly and be a bit more interesting. And there will hopefully be more about Ranger Pete Quinn, and the hamlet of Mill Forge, too.

Stay tuned...
Trailpatrol

Playing With Fire

We spent all of the past two Thursdays doing prescribed burns in the park. It's an interesting process, that is actually a lot more complicated than you might think. The first area we burned was to remove woody undergrowth, such as buckthorn and poison ivy, and burn down a lot of the overgrown weeds and non-native grass species. The second session was part of a native prairie restoration project. In a few years we will have about 40 acres on the west side of the park that will close to it was like 200 years ago. (In the picture I am spraying water to keep the flames from advancing off park land, into the farmer's field behind me.) The burns were also the first time that our entire park staff has had the opportunity to work together as a team, including the three of us who work primarily at the Rec. Area, 25 miles away. Every year we have to take fire training and shelter deployment practice. Now we know why! This week's burn went very well, with almost no mop-up to do after the flames and smoke died down.

I want to be Smokey's friend!

Trailpatrol