Walker Valley Meeting Minutes August 2023

Hey everyone, Zach here. I'm going to start sharing the meeting minutes from the Walker Valley Advisory Group that myself, Sam, and Evan Sussman from the Skagit Motorcycle Club are a part of. In an effort to keep this group focused we are keeping it to elected representatives of the user groups, and then we will distribute the information out to you guys and girls who are interested. Currently these are hosted by the DNR, and attended by Alte Enduro, SMC, Timber Tamers, The NW Quad Association, Walker Valley Rentals and Repairs, and a few other involved individuals.

Without further ado, here is the meeting minutes from this months meeting.

• The fire at Martys Mania has been handled and is currently still being checked on nightly by the fire department. Originally called in at 4 Acres, we have learned it was contained at 2.5 acres. The trails affected by this are back open and is business as usual in this area. The fire is currently under investigation and we don't have an official verdict, but evidence is pointing to this being caused by people, possibly a poorly made fire pit or fireworks. I will update you guys as we learn more. Our new warden Brigen shared this picture with me of the aftermath.

• Staying on topic with our new Warden, we got some numbers from the last month of violations out at Walker Valley. We had 88 instances of no Discover Pass, 23 instances of No ORV tags, and 27 causes of no helmets /children riding up front. Definitely make sure you all have your passes and tags, as citations will begin soon for these violations. If we can keep these violations down it will look a lot better for the park, and make it a lot easier for us to get grants and whatnot for trail repair and maintenance. A little bit on the children riding up front, this is an important one since we don't have directional trails at Walker, children don't have the reactionary skills to avoid head-on collisions.

• Moving to trail repairs and work, the yellow qualifier at the south end of the park has had its qualifier rebuilt after the boulders were pulled out by SxS's a few weeks back. The massive amount of tree fall on lower Centennial have been cleared now as well.

• Our new Trails Manager Ali also reported that we have had a staggering 42,000 feet of trail brushed and cleared by the DNR and the WCC over the course of 17 days. This is an amazing amount of work and make sure to say stop and thank these folks when you see them clearing trails that you enjoy. There is also a DNR work party this upcoming Saturday (8-12-2023) on Tooler performing brush work on the trail, more information on this further down.

• In July we had three work parties out at Walker, Bob with NW Quad Association put a lot of work in on Kim and Monica's early in the month. The DNR July work party focused on trail entrances and line of sight issues at trailheads. And then Sam and I put on a work party in conjuncture with SMC and focused on the lower single track trails ( I-5, SMC, and Cavanaugh)

• A little bit more on the Alte Enduro / SMC work party, we were able to get a lot done after 21 volunteers showed up to help at this event. A majority of the work was done on I-5, where major reworks were done to the southern entrance to fix water runoff issues and a very washed out off camber berm early in the trail. Throughout these trails we also trimmed and removed sticker bushes, existing water drainage was all brought down to or below trail grade to allow for effective drainage again once the rain starts. We also reclaimed some paths that were dangerously close to being choked out by sticker bushes. We totaled up about 120 hours of volunteer time, had donuts for everyone in the AM, and hotdogs in the PM for everyone. It was a great turnout!

• Coming on this Saturday the 12th, the DNR is hosting a work party focusing on Tooler to clear vegetation from the trail corridor. The official start time is at 9am at the west entrance to Tooler, all equipment will be provided and you'll be making a difference at our favorite place to ride!

This concludes the minutes from this months meeting. If you have anything you want me to bring up at the next meeting, comment here or email me at zach@alteenduro.com and I will compile a list of topics for our next meeting. Cheers and happy riding!

-Zach