Exhange: Trail etiquette hinges on asharing of space

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — It wasn’t a summit meeting, per se. Nor was it held on a summit. Rather, it took place on a prime stretch of forest land near Flagstaff that officials and a broad coalition of user advocates were looking to develop into another trail.

At that years-ago Forest Service conclave, Anthony Quintile, board member with the Flagstaff Biking Organization, had an exchange that has stuck with him all this time. An advocate for equestrians told Quintile about an incident in which his wife was riding on singletrack when a troika of mountain bikers overtook her. Her horse spooked, reared up, lashed out. The bikers pedaled on.

“She could’ve been thrown off and broken a leg or killed,” the horseman told Quintile.

“Yeah,” Quintile lamented, “you know, there are a lot of (jerks) in the world, and some of them are mountain bikers.”

Not sure how his response would go over, Quintile was relieved when the horseman smiled and said, “Yeah, some of those (jerks) are equestrians, too.”

The point, Quintile emphasized, is that the enduring problem of a lack of trail etiquette in Flagstaff and elsewhere in northern Arizona is not due to a single, or even multiple, user groups easily demonized.

“It’s a problem with individuals acting badly,” he told the Arizona Daily Sun. “The reality of that story is that we each recognized that there were people participating in the thing we like to do who we couldn’t control but who were bad actors.”

And yet, there seem be enough individual “bad actors” on the trails, no matter the mode of transport, that a refresher course in proper trail etiquette may be in order.

Be it the hiker wearing headphones blissfully unaware of his surroundings when a fellow user wants to pass; a dog walker leaving Fido’s droppings behind or, worse yet, letting the canine roam free unleashed; the mountain biker or trail runner bombing down hills and careening around blind corners; or the equestrian taking to singletrack with impunity because the “triangle” of trail use suggests that all others must always yield to horses; or the dirt bike or quad tearing through trails and crop-dusting other users on fire roads — there are enough incidents on the trail that blame can be apportioned out to all.

Such bad behavior is not routine, by any stretch. But there have been enough run-ins on local trails in recent years to suggest that the education campaigns that each user group tries to instill isn’t always getting through.

That much is obvious by the responses documented in a Flagstaff Trails Initiative survey, published in December of 2018. Respondents listed “visitor use” as the third biggest area of concern behind “maintenance” and “unauthorized trails.” A majority of users, 53%, listed “user conflict” as the primary problem. The comments section of the FTI survey was saturated with complaints against the fellow trail users of all persuasion, though unleashed dogs and speedy mountain bikers incurred the most wrath.

Likewise, when the Daily Sun recently asked readers for opinions on trail etiquette, or lack thereof, the query garnered more than 125 responses from nearly all constituencies.

So, yes, there clearly is a problem. But what to do?

There are few, if any, actual ordinances and laws that seek to legislate trail behavior, the notable and high-profile exception being the leash laws adopted by nearly all jurisdictions (City of Flagstaff, Coconino County, the National Forest Service among them). And the ubiquitous “triangle” signs often seen at trailheads — bikers yielding to hikers and horses, hikers yielding to horses — is not a rule, merely a prudent suggestion for cooperation.

What may be needed, say trail advocates from all user groups, is an agreed-upon set of best practices, based on most sense and common courtesy but also flexible enough that encounters can be dealt with situationally.

Mostly, education is what’s called for, many say. Rare is the heedless trail user who flouts protocol with impunity, but advocate say scofflaws need to be called out on it nicely, diffusing conflict.

As Craig Ferdig, president of the Back Country Horsemen of Central Arizona, said sheepishly, “There are just as many equine (jerks) out there as any other; in fact, I’ve had as many negative run-ins with other horse people as I have bikers or hikers.”

And, as for a lack of education, Quintile said people would be surprised by the lack of savvy from many trail offenders, whether they’re unaware of leash laws or misread the triangle until it looks like a pretzel.

“There’s a kid I know, a bike racer, he and his dad and another guy were riding,” Quintile said. “The two (men) were both law enforcement officers. You know, law-abiding folks. They were coming down Schultz Creek Trail, and the dad goes blasting past a hiker coming up. His son chased him down and said, ‘Dad, what are you doing?’ The dad says, ‘Well, he’s supposed to yield to me,’ and the son goes ‘No, no, no.’

“The dad saw it as common sense, like, ‘Well, I have inertia and it’s simple for them (hikers) to just step aside and it’s more difficult for me to slow and stop.’ But the son set him straight. The dad felt terribly afterward.”

You see them all over, those triangular signs at trailheads with the all-caps “trail courtesy” header followed by icons of a bicyclist yielding to icons of both hikers and horsemen.

Out on the trail, though, it’s not always that simple. Though many hikers and equestrians are loath to concede it, some encounters are best resolved with the hiker or, in rarer cases, the horse rider stepping off the path for a mountain biker or dirt biker.

Ferdig is a strict adherent to the triangle’s principles. He widely disseminates a pamphlet sponsored by the Prescott Trails Safety Coalition that spells out the best practices, explaining with bullet points why hikers and runners need to yield to horses, why mountain bikers need to yield to both (the only caveat being, “slow down as you approach other users and pass only if the right-of-way is yielded to you”), how horsemen need to call out to other users well in advance, and how those on motorized vehicles need to yield to “all other trail users” and turn off engines when encountering horses.

Among those taking exception to the triangle is Warren Williams, past president of the Coconino Trail Riders, an off-road singletrack and enduro motorcycle advocacy group.

“To me, the triangle is more like a guideline,” he said. “I do my best to pull over on the downhill, because it’s hard for a mountain biker to keep his mojo going uphill. But, often, people can hear a dirt bike coming from a long way away, so they’d have time to prepare for us. There’s got to be some wiggle room there in the triangle.

“Equestrians actually like the dirt bikers, because they can hear us and move off to the side. But whenever I see a horse, I shut off my motor and sometimes reach into my pocket and give them a dog biscuit to let them know, we’re not bad people. But then there are hikers who refuse to move when they hear us a long way off.”

Quintile, of the Flagstaff Biking Organization, calls the triangle “a construct, not a rule” that is “weighted toward equestrians.”

To illustrate his point, Quintile posed the scenario of a hiker going down a steep singletrack trail and a mountain biker struggling up the same hill. He believes the hiker should step aside and let the mountain biker have the right-of-way in that case, since the biker has the more difficult task at that moment and needs the space. But he said that people — mostly hikers but sometimes runners — who take the triangle literally and refuse to move in any circumstance cause needless conflict.

“I don’t believe the triangle is the end-all and be-all, and I think most veteran trail users recognize that,” Quintile said.

That may be true, but sometimes veteran trail users misjudge when the triangle’s suggestions can be relaxed. Ferdig experienced one such close call recently on a trail at Groom Creek, south of Prescott. He said he encountered three swiftly-moving trail runners, all wearing ear buds and “totally unaware” that horses were up ahead. It was a narrow singletrack trail with a steep drop-off to one side and a hill on the other side.

“They don’t slow down coming down the hill at all and instead of stopping and moving to the side, ran right by us on the upside,” he said. “This female runner goes right by my horse on a two-foot trail with a steep drop and my horse’s (kick) missed her. It could’ve easily gone bad for the runner.”

Near misses also happen involving mountain bikers rounding blind corners. Often, bikers do not have time to stop and yield, even if they are proceeding at a safe speed.

To mitigate that, the Flagstaff Bike Organization, which partners with groups such as the Trail Faeries to build and realign trails, makes a point of eliminating such hazards.

“We work with the Forest Service on designing trails with a good line of sight and things that will inherently check mountain biker speed and give trail users views of each other before they encounter one another,” Quintile said. “Conflicts arise from spatial concerns — technical issues, not behavioral issues.”

Hikers responding to the FTI survey and to the Daily Sun query counter that it’s not just on turns where mountain bikers can present problems. Hiker Ann Hart said she was on Schultz Creek Trail, a popular biking spot, when she was run off the path.

“It was a narrow and rocky uphill section for me, and the guy was coming downhill way too fast for a narrow, steep part of this multi-use trail,” she said. “He screamed a frequently used curse word at me followed by ‘get out of my way’ and the only choice I had was to take a header on the uphill side of the trail. I was lucky to only sustain some bruises and a cut on my leg.”

Quintile acknowledges some individual bad behavior, but says the vast majority of mountain bikers are cautious and patient.

“To call it a user-group problem creates division,” he said, “where people talk about those people on horses or those people on mountain bikes or dirt bikes. That’s not helpful.”

By far the most cited complaint of Daily Sun readers was the proliferation of dogs off leash on forest trails as well as on the FUTS. Neil Weintraub, founder of the Northern Arizona Trail Runners Association, says unleashed dogs is “one of the biggest problems on the trail.” In fact, he put a link on NATRA’s website alerting people to the City of Flagstaff municipal code and Coconino County’s leash ordinance, as well as the U.S. Forest Service regulations that follow state and local law.

Yet enforcement remains scant.

“I have heard of citations, but only a few times,” said Weintraub, who has lived in Flagstaff since the 1980s. “It is no doubt very difficult to enforce.”

The bulk of trail users find unleashed dogs barreling toward them an annoyance, at best, and a hazard at worst.

“Out in the wilderness, people want their dogs to run around and get exercise — I understand that,” horseman’s advocate Ferdig said. “Dogs are as close to a wild animal as a horse is. An owner may think he has great control over his dog with voice-command, but that’s not always true and it can cause a train wreck, bad accidents.”

Williams said dirt bikers have had to dodge unleashed dogs bearing down on them. It’s not just hikers, though. Trail runners and mountain bikers often have unleashed dogs run alongside them, and the canines sometimes veer off the trail, precipitating dog-on-dog or dog-on-human incidents.

In March, Outside Magazine addressed the unleashed-dog hazards. It profiled a Boulder, Colo., program that sought to train off-leashed dogs to follow voice and sight rules on trails. But, the magazine reported, “conflicts returned to pre-certification levels quite quickly. Often evolution trumps training.”

Trail users, frankly, are fearful of unleashed dogs — even though dog owners chasing after the rampaging canines inevitably say how “friendly” it is.

“It’s not fun when your ‘friendly’ dog pops out of nowhere and chases me and nips at my heels when I’m running,” said runner Rachel DeWilliams. “(This is) coming from someone who loves dogs and is an owner of two dogs.”

The other dog issue rising in profile recently involved owners who dutifully bag their dog’s waste, but then leave said bag trailside presumably for someone else to pick up and throw away.

“(It’s) as though some Forest Service elf will magically swoop in and carry it off,” trail user Robyn Martin said of the discarded bags. “Instead, the bags deteriorate along with the dog poop, and now we have more plastic trash in our forests. Ziploc it and take it … or leave your dog at home.”

Horses, at 1,000 pounds-plus, can be intimidating animals to other trail users. That’s why, in most cases, hikers, runners and mountain bikers have little problem giving them a wide berth.

But there are times when it’s possible to be too deferential to horses. The practice of hikers stepping well off the trail and hiding behind bushes or a tree is an example of good intentions gone awry, said Julie Sage, owner of the Flagstaff Equestrian Center. All the horse sees and interprets, Sage said, is another animal lurking and perhaps wanting to pounce.

“People end up looking like they are panthers waiting to jump out,” she said. “First, stop and then say something to the horse. Horses don’t see humans and think they are all friendly. They see a prey animal. But if that prey animal sounds like a human that brings them food every day, it’s less dangerous.”

Sage said equestrians need to train their horses to be in the back country around hikers and bikers. “Horses have the same learning curve as humans or dogs,” she said. “They need to be trained how to react.”

Ferdig, of the Back County Horsemen, added that it’s incumbent on equestrians not to take a “green” horse on the trail. “It’s a courtesy sharing a trail,” he said, “and horsemen need to be safe like anyone else.”

Williams, of the Coconino Trail Riders, has a simple request for people: “It’s clear to me if the trail is called ‘Lower Moto,’ it’s intended for motorized vehicles.”

He paused, lengthily, to let that fact seep in.

“But there’s a lot — OK, some — who don’t like that,” he added. “They don’t want us out there at all.”

Indeed, some trail users are almost militant in opposition to motorized vehicles on trails, citing environmental damage such as erosion and destruction of native flora. But officials have designated certain routes, such as in the Fort Valley Trail System and the Kelly Canyon trails, as open to dirt bikes.

“There are 600 miles of trails I can’t ride on,” Williams said. “Once Kelly is finished, there’ll be 150 miles of legal singletrack for dirt bikes. But people don’t even want us there. It’s like they say, ‘We can use your trails, but you can’t use ours.’”

Because of their perceived second-class status, dirt bikers go out of their way to be courteous and often have the highest attendance at trail-building events, said NATRA’s Weintraub.

“I’ve never had a problem with any motorbike on the multiple-use trails,” Weintraub said. “They seem to be the best educated users out there. They are also well organized and do a ton of maintenance. But I guess that is the usual story. Join or support any of the organized trail user groups and you become part of the solution.”

As far as solutions go to the ongoing lapses in trail etiquette, mountain biking advocate Quintile preaches patience with and education for those individual “jerks” who sometimes flout trail decorum.

“It’s not rocket science to do this, and you shouldn’t come with a lot of attitude,” he said. “Nobody’s entitled and everybody should try to get along.”