Last Tuesday Matt, TJ, Barney, and I attended the yearly planning and budgeting meeting for the Bothwell Lodge State Historic Site. We were there to bring attention to the existing trail (Radiant Trail) there and to work out what we would need to do to add some trail to the existing 3 mile loop.
Mark Hohengasser, the Central Missouri representative for the International Mountain Bike Association, and Missouri Department of Natural Resources employee also attended the meeting. I had contacted Mark about a month ago to find out what sort of assistance the IMBA could give us with the trail project and was very pleased with the response I got from Mark.
Mark works with the Missouri State Trails Coordinator and she is very busy with another project in the state and has assigned our project to Mark. Mark is now our main state parks department person. Since he is also with the IMBA he will be able to help us get this accomplished quickly and effectively.
We also spoke with Jill White, the Bothwell Lodge State Park Superintendent. Jill is totally on board with us and would love to see the trails improve. Jill’s biggest concern is on going trail maintenance. There are only 3 full time employees at the park and only one of those people (Eric) are responsible for maintenance. Erik takes care of all of the mowing, painting, plumbing, and general up keep of all of the buildings and facilities in the park. The lodge is almost 100 years and as you can imagine it requires a lot of up keep.
We will be using all volunteer help to improve the existing trail and to add any additions. We will be marking the proposed new trail sections in the coming weeks so Jill and Mark can approve what we want to do. Once we get the go ahead we will be scheduling several work days and will be in need of volunteers to help us do the work.
I will be adding a page to the site soon that will be dedicated to this project. If you are interested in volunteering for the trail work days please send me an e-mail and I’ll get you on the list. You can also check back here or even better subscribe and stay up to date on all the happenings. I’ll be posting dates and maps and pictures as soon as we get them ready.
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