Trailblazers Worry Parks Supervisors Bike Trail Along High Drive Illegal Use Of City Parkland

Some people put a lot of time and energy into building the thousands of feet of bike trail along the steep bluff beneath Spokane’s High Drive.

They toted in shovels and saws. They snipped away low branches and cut down a few small trees.

In some places, they even lined the trail neatly with rocks and bricks.

There’s just one problem.

Building trails on city parkland is illegal, said Tony Madunich, grounds supervisor for the city’s Parks Department.

“Someone is putting quite a lot of effort into this,” Madunich said, standing on the footwide dirt trail that stretches across the hillside from about Bernard Street to 33rd Avenue on the South Hill.

“They’re bringing equipment in here and cutting out a flat trail. They’re quite well-armed.”

Not only are the trails illegal, they’re dangerous, said Taylor Bressler, Parks Department manager.

Clearing away native grasses and chopping down trees on a steep grade like the one beneath High Drive creates the perfect environment for a washout.

“Before you know it, you could have the whole hill slide down into Latah Creek,” Bressler said.

The 178-acre parcel of undeveloped land isn’t slated for a future park, Bressler said. Instead, it is one of several pieces of city conservation land - usually undevelopable property along steep slopes or sensitive areas the city either bought or received as a gift.

Other conservation lands include Lincoln Park, Rimrock and Indian Canyon.

Dumping, trail building and other potentially destructive behaviors take place on these lands all the time, Bressler said. “People find vacant land, and they assume they can do anything on it.”

Bressler said the Parks Department isn’t opposed to mountain biking. In fact, bikers have built trails in Minnehaha Park where the soil is fairly rocky and no one complains, Madunich said.

But areas with sandy soils such as the hillside below High Drive are more fragile, he said. Besides increasing erosion risks, the trails open up the sensitive lands to other kinds of traffic - motorcycles, allterrain vehicles and people camping out.

The damage is costly.

Kids dumping rocks into a sewer pipe that runs down through the High Drive slope created an avalanche of dirt that cost nearly $15,000 to repair, Madunich said.

Teenagers most likely are responsible for building the bike trails, he said. “I don’t think they realize what a concern this is.”

Like other neighbors of conservation land, Mary Birgenheier treasures the wildlife that wander across the High Drive hillside.

“I like to hike down there and see the deer,” said Birgenheier, who lives a couple blocks away on Jefferson Court. “A lot of bikers are using that trail, tearing up the ground. They’re scaring the deer away.”

Bressler said the Parks Department is considering posting signs that discourage use of the conservation areas.

“I just don’t want (people) chopping up the hillside,” he said.

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