Building new OHV trails can be a daunting and difficult task. Regulations, costs and staff capacity are all challenges that can keep new projects from coming to fruition.
Luckily, there are creative and enthusiastic land managers like Josh Lattin of the Lincoln Ranger District of the Helena National Forest in Montana, who work to find new ways to build fun and sustainable OHV trails.
Over the last few years Lattin has partnered with the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council to design and build a new network of 50-inch trails just outside of Lincoln, MT. By sharing workload and expenses under a challenge cost share agreement, NOHVCC and the Lincoln Ranger District have been able to design and build several OHV trails that were approved in the District’s Travel Management Plan.
The creation of these new trails also supports the town of Lincoln, MT, by helping the town establish itself as even more of a recreation destination, where it once relied heavily on timber and mining dollars.
Recently NOHVCC project managers Geoff Chain and Marc Hildesheim spent four days working on layout and design in the Sandbar Creek area. The project area included several miles of new design and conversion of road to trails. Chain and Hildesheim were able to layout three miles of new trails and conduct reconnaissance and research on several more locations of the trail alignment.
NOHVCC and the Lincoln Ranger District hope to build the new sections of trail this fall or early next spring and will continue to work towards a complete design and construction of the trail system. This will be a great step forward towards the goal of creating Lincoln and its surrounding region as a recreation destination.
