Trail Monitoring Update

WRTC’s Trail Monitoring Program kicked into full gear this past week, with our entire fleet of trail counters deployed and starting to track early season trail use across the Wood River Valley. The locations for counters this year are as follows:

  • Greenhorn 

  • Imperial 

  • Cow Creek Connector 

  • Cowhorn (short loop at Greenhorn trailhead)

  • Hyndman Creek

  • Pioneer Cabin/Long Gulch

  • Old Adam’s Road 

  • Forbidden Fruit

  • Taylor Canyon 

  • Chocolate Gulch 

  • Alden Gulch

  • Tin Cup Trailhead/beginning of Alice/Toxaway Loop (SNRA)

This year, the program’s goals are to obtain a more precise understanding of user-group breakdowns, study the difference in traffic patterns across various looped trail systems (Greenhorn, Pioneer Cabin/Long Gulch, Adam’s Gulch), and generally build upon the data we collected in 2021. 

This past winter, we were able to purchase 4 additional infrared trail counters and 2 metal-detecting counters which are designed to only count wheeled trail traffic - e-bikes, mountain bikes, and dirt bikes. Thank you to SPUR Community Foundation for funding this purchase! These new counters, deployed simultaneously with our standard infrared counters, will (hopefully!) give us a data-backed understanding of user group breakdowns on certain trails. Having this information will help the WRTC continue to deliver on our mission: to create, maintain, and sustain our trail network for ALL users!

We are also so excited to help build the trail monitoring capacity of the SNRA this summer, as we collect data at one of the most popular entry points to the Sawtooth Wilderness. While this location is not technically located in the Wood River Valley, the SNRA serves a critical role in providing the abundant trail recreation opportunities we all know and love in our region. The WRTC is proud to continue strengthening our partnership with Sawtooth National Forest recreation managers. 

The expansion and continuation of our trail monitoring program would not have been possible without the generosity and support of our members, donors, the SPUR Foundation, and the Wood River Valley community as a whole. Thank you endlessly for allowing us to carry out this work!

A quick reminder about the trail counters: if you come across a trail counter, please do not touch or tamper with it. Additionally, we kindly ask that you do not stop to inspect or walk back and forth in front of the counters. This will cause the counter to record additional detections, and the data can become quite tricky to understand. Please report any tampering or suspected damage to the counters to Emily Rodrigue, our Program Coordinator, at erodrigue@woodrivertrailscoalition.org. Be on the look out for trail monitoring updates throughout the summer. 

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