Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Bonneville Shoreline Trail

I've spent the past couple weeks biking the Utah County section of the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. Over the past couple years I've biked sections of it, w/ moderate success of finding all the sections. The thing really isn't mapped that well, and their website hasn't had updated maps in a very long time -- not that those maps would do any good anyway. So armed w/ my GPS I set out to map most of it, and I had to find the connecting chunks that I have yet to ride. The trail has some really fun sections to ride, and there's a good mix of all types of trail riding throughout. There's some sweet downhill singletrack with tight turns, and trees/brush lining the sides, then there's roller coaster style trails in doubletrack, and plenty of uphill to make the legs burn. I managed to get about 25 miles of it mapped. There's probably another 5 miles down in Springville that I'd have to find. I was down there in unfamiliar territory biking last night when the trail did it's typical thing and went off at an intersection in an unpredictable route, and I was too tired to want to look for it. It had taken two weeks of biking and recovering to get that far, and though it was a good time, I just didn't want to go any further. Since I'm moving out of the area in a couple of days, I think I'll just leave the trail at that, and if anybody else wants to submit the rest of it later on they can.

I don't know who's to blame for the lack of trail markings, or directions. It could be the local cities, or the trail association itself. I find it humorous that where trail markings are essential, like at intersections, there's no signage to be found, but when the trail is obvious, and there's no chance of getting off course there are signs galore. Hopefully the maps, and info I've put together will be of help to others to know where the trail goes.