Alden Gulch 2022 Data

We finally have some solid, consistent data from our two trail counters on the Alden Gulch trail (#144), and we’d love to hear your feedback on the results!

In 2021, we had a counter placed at Alden Gulch’s entry/exit along Baker Creek Road. The counter was only deployed for a few weeks, but it recorded some exceptionally high user counts. WRTC staff and Forest Service trail managers began to wonder how the Alden Gulch trail was being used - could larger groups be running shuttles to the top of East Fork of Baker Creek Road, contributing to these high user counts? In 2022, we decided to dig deeper and place two trail counters on the Alden Gulch trail: one counter about a mile and half up the trail from Baker Creek Road, and another counter about a half mile from the top of Alden and the intersection with Osberg Ridgeline. 

As you can see in the Daily Trail Use graph, detections for the top and bottom counters strongly mirror one another in total daily detections. This would suggest that the bulk of Alden’s trail users are shuttling to the top of the trail via car on the East Fork of Baker Creek Road, riding up the East Fork road with their bike or riding up and over on the Osberg Ridgeline trail. These routes would result in a single detection at the top and bottom trail counter for each trail user. Alternatively, if a user were to ride/hike up Alden Gulch from Baker Creek Road and travel to the very top of the trail, they would be counted twice at each counter - once on the climb up, and again on the journey down. 

The hourly trail traffic graph presents a different version of the story. There is a big disparity in average hourly counter detections in the 10:00AM-12:00PM time frame, with detections beginning to mirror each other again around 2:00PM. This could be due to some users climbing up Alden from Baker Creek Road, but turning around before reaching the top counter. It could also demonstrate more users traveling the complete “out and back” route on Alden (no East Fork road or Osberg), but choosing to start this route later in the day. 

What is your experience? How do you decide what route to take for Alden? Do these results surprise you? Let us know - send an email to erodrigue@woodrivertrailscoalition.org ! Your feedback is valuable to us as we create our season reports and presentations, which will be available for the public later this fall. Thank you for investing in your trails!