Great meeting last night. If you are interested in the Uwharrie trail system at all, please try to come out to some of these meetings if possible. I know it's a long way out there for most people in Charlotte and it's on a work night but it's really important that we show up and make our presence known. Other user groups are showing up too, like hikers, ATV people, equestrians etc so we need to show that we are a strong user group also. The Forest service seems very interested and excited about working with us as a user group and as a club so all we really need to do is show up and give them ideas and direction. They are very pleased so far with all the work that the Trailblazers have put in so far over the years so we already have a very good working relationship with the rangers. 

The main purpose of last nights meeting was to identify some specific things we want to focus on going forward. Funds are limited and of course time is always limited so they wanted to know where to try to focus spending and efforts. They wanted to know of any problem areas we knew of, any safety concerns, any conflicts with other user groups and any areas that we wanted to focus on for possible new trail in the future. So we broke into all the different user groups and each user group was assigned a different leader who listened to our ideas and input and then a list was created with all the stuff we talked about. That list will now be taken back to the higher ups who will ultimately decide whether our ideas are feasible.

After the meeting was over I overheard our group leader reporting his impressions back to the supervisor and he had lots of positive things to say about us. He was mostly impressed with the fact that we were not solely focused on "new, new, new trail" and "what can you do for us" kind of stuff. He loved the fact that we were willing and able (and indeed enthusiastic even) about maintaining the existing trail and he also loved the fact that we were able to tell them about problem areas that need to be addressed. That saves time for him because then he doesn't have to go walking the entire trail system all the time figuring all that out for himself. And he also liked that we did want to look at new areas for new trail and that we were understanding about having to work within the areas that are feasible and within their parameters for new trail. So all in all I left feeling like we made a good impression and with each meeting are building more and more of a rapport with them, which in turn should enable us to work towards getting new stuff out there which in the end is pretty much what we all want.

Great job guys!  As soon as I don't have a post work conflict with a meeting date I will certainly be there.  Is there a way or a place to go to find out when the next meeting is?

TrillWill wrote on 12/12/14 at 6:02pm:


There is an email that gets sent out about the meetings. If you will PM me your email address I will forward the last email to you and then you can use that to get your email added to the list. You should then start receiving emails about the meetings. We will also try to always post about upcoming meetings here. Anyone else that wants to be added to the list can send their email addresses to me also.

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No not really. Anytime we mentioned trying to get access to hiking only trails it was met with hesitation. Not an outright no but just the general feeling that it would be an uphill battle. Best to just maybe cross the hiking trails at certain points and then onto a dedicated MTB trail.

Advocat wrote on 12/12/14 at 10:57pm:



That is what I was thinking, its probably best for everyone anyway.  Besides the trails near the trailhead are already fun and pretty much single use.