The Middle Fork valley has long been abused by everyone from hikers dropping candy bar wrappers to operators of meth labs. As part of the Forest Service's plan (PDF) for cleaning up the valley they have opted to open the Middle Fork trail to mountain bikes on odd-numbered days during parts of the year. It's a three-year trial after which the Forest Service will examine the changes to the trail and decide whether or not it's a good thing.
Although I expect to see the trail trashed by heavy mountain biker use I'm hopeful the trail won't see any degradation or the mountain biker community will step up and help maintain the trail. (One of the guys at work claims this is what will happen.)
Regardless, I figured it'd be a good thing if I have something more than my memory to gauge the trail condition by when it comes up for evaluation in three years. I took a break from the 24x7 video monitoring of Clara and let the tape roll for an hour as Clara, Carl, Tokul, and I headed upstream from the Gateway Bridge. (After watching the bouncy video, though, I'm not sure how useful it will be to much of anyone.)
Why am I so concerned with the state of this one trail since there are so many others in the neighborhood? The Middle Fork trail was the first trail I really got to know when I was starting to hike. Tokul and I walked up and down it several times before Amy joined us for the entire 12-mile round trip.
Today, we were under time constraints so we managed only about six miles round trip, ending at the curve in the river looking up at Mt. Price. (At least I think it's Mt. Price.) Clara woke up as Tokul was running around in the river so she got some tasty Cheerios before we packed up and headed back.
