# Do You Know How It Feels to Lose Your Favorite Friends??



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

Those of us who have visited or lived in Sedona the last twelve years have experienced a huge explosion of new user built trails to fill our dreams of what mountain biking is all about. Due to the dedication of a few dedicated trail builders Sedona has become a mecca of extra special trails to ride.

Unfortunately today I was told that the FS will be killing one of my extra special friends. He was known as Tomahawk and soon he will be lifted to one of the highest trees in Sedona and hung by his strong neck before a crowd of very sad highly skilled mountain bikers. 

There are only a select few who have ever gotten to know Tomahawk on an intimate basis. I was fortunate to introduce one of the founders of this great website to Tomahawk and I am sure when he hears about his death he will definitely take pause and maybe shed a tear or two of his unfortunate passing. 

My hope is that when all the landmanagers pass onto their future destinations, there will be a replacement crew that will allow Tomahawk to resurrect to his once great demeanor to offer mountain bikers all over the world an unbelievable riding experience.

If you ever had the good fortune to meet Megladon in Moab, you will know what I am talking about. He also met that same tragic demise. And the memory of me cleaning the organ donor section will will stay with me until the end of my life. :thumbsup:


----------



## rockman (Jun 18, 2004)

Goodbye Tomahawk it was good to have known you.


----------



## helimech (Mar 21, 2006)

Thanks TD for showing me both of the trails you mention. Goodthing it was done in time before this bad news. Bummer! Your the man for cleaning organ donor, thats a toughy.


----------



## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

*Do You Know How It Feels to Loose Your Favorite Friends??*

Yikes. A lynching is not the greatest analogy. Neither is to hype up illegal trails on the Internet but these days, common sense has been tossed out the window.


----------



## rideit (Jan 22, 2004)

Trails are mercurial. 
If you know what I'm sayin'


----------



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

rideit said:


> Trails are mercurial.
> If you know what I'm sayin'


rideit:

I missed riding with you on all those once user built trails on the Teton Summit. Wow what a place to ride. You can hitch hike up to the top of the pass (takes about 10 minutes to get picked up with your bike) and then you get to ride down 2,500' feet or more on all those great trails.

This trail especially stood out as a keeper:


----------



## rideit (Jan 22, 2004)

Not to mention all of the stuff we have been building for 15 years in the Big hole's!
next time...


----------



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

Looks like someone else is grieving for the loss of Tom (http://forums.mtbr.com/arizona/toma...c-haters-haters-general-take-hike-837741.html)

For those of you who never met him, he was more fun than a day of riding Nothstar that is for sure. Guys like bikeabuser are celebrating his termination while the rest of us who knew him will never forget him. When the pictures come out of his true merits, I think one will have to agree he was a stand up guy.


----------



## bikeabuser (Aug 12, 2012)

traildoc said:


> Looks like someone else is grieving for the loss of Tom (http://forums.mtbr.com/arizona/toma...c-haters-haters-general-take-hike-837741.html)
> 
> For those of you who never met him, he was more fun than a day of riding Nothstar that is for sure. Guys like bikeabuser are celebrating his termination while the rest of us who knew him will never forget him. When the pictures come out of his true merits, I think one will have to agree he was a stand up guy.


I only celebrate you, and your smartness of admission.

Now go cry about bringing this trail to the public's attention via your maps, and persistent drama.


----------



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

bikeabuser said:


> I only celebrate you, and your smartness of admission.
> 
> Now go cry about bringing this trail to the public's attention via your maps, and persistent drama.


bike:

You are showing your true colors. You have no clue what mountain biking means to many of us who are passionate about the sport. I fortunately have been able to experience many highs this great sport brings many of us who shared our favorite trails with are fellow riders. You are not my friend and you have no clue what many of those extra special rides mean to a lot of us who have enjoys hooking up with guys like Tom and his close cousins Levitra and Killer Bee.

In the Sedona Red Rock News there is an article today about what has gone on in Sedona. In the article it states that there are over 97,000 results for Google search on "Sedona mountain bike trails" this is not some passing thing this is a passionate thing that will continue to move forward no matter what the FS plans to do.

Riders will continue to check out Sedona in the near future, whether guys like you will kill the interest time will tell. Without great trails Sedona's appeal will loose it appeal like what kind of happen in Moab. But with new trails like UPS, LPS, Green Dot and Blue Dot new blood was given back to that great riding area. We will see if the B team can recreate trails like Damifino, Killer Bee and Tomahawk time will tell.


----------



## bikeabuser (Aug 12, 2012)

There's also a story about another Sedona resident who followed your path of admission for tearing up public land ... Take your drama and do something good for a change.

You might have done good, but ... The MTB community doesn't need your kind of attention.


----------



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

bikeabuser said:


> There's also a story about another Sedona resident who followed your path of admission for tearing up public land ... Take your drama and do something good for a change.
> 
> You might have done good, but ... The MTB community doesn't need your kind of attention.


abuser:

Once again you have miss stated that facts about me. I have never supported the building of unsustainable trails if you were to hike the Aerie trail that I built you will find that the 2.7 milr route is totally sustainable. You can claim I have worked on unstainable trails, but all the volunteer FS work I did was as good or better than what a FS crew would do.


----------



## KRob (Jan 13, 2004)

That is a shame. One of the best trails I have ridden (and I've ridden quite a few).... and absolutely _the_ best entrance filters I've ever seen. No worries about quads,motos, or horses getting onto Tomahawk. Thank you zul for showing me around Tomahawk/Damifino/Hangover. Wow, what a day!

What's their hang up on approving Tomahawk?


----------



## traildoc (Mar 5, 2007)

KRob said:


> That is a shame. One of the best trails I have ridden (and I've ridden quite a few).... and absolutely _the_ best entrance filters I've ever seen. No worries about quads,motos, or horses getting onto Tomahawk. Thank you zul for showing me around Tomahawk/Damifino/Hangover. Wow, what a day!
> 
> What's their hang up on approving Tomahawk?


When the FS was going through the adoption process of Tomahawk's cousin Hangover they noted that over thirty years ago the FS had established the Casner Canyon Area as a study area for the AZ Cypress trees that live there. 
I really believe it was a way to restrict development of beautiful estates in that beautiful area. The wilderness area around Sedona had been established and Casner was left out of the wilderness designation since it didn't fit the criteria at the time, so walla let's make it an AZ Cypress study area.

OK, along come a bunch of user built trails: Damifino, Damifidont, Damifido, Killer Bee, Levitra, Brew Pub, Levitra By Pass and the now once famous Tomahawk. 
But with the adoption of Hangover comes a study of the local area and low and behold there is a study area close by.

So know the BIG question is, is the FS going to go into that beautiful area and do there STUDY of the AZ Cypress trees. They have decommissioned all the trails in that area and they left signs that the trail is under restoration, so how are the studiers going to get into those areas the trails were on to study the trees?

Our idea was they could do a study of the trees next to the trail to see what detrimental effect the trail had on the trees within 20' of the trail. That way you could determine whether AZ Cypress trees are affected by hikers and mountain bikers. My personal feeling is that they would grow faster due to more sunlight, but maybe that only works in my yard and not in the wild.

Some of us are really looking forward to seeing what that new study will really be trying to determine. If there are any arborists out there who understand what the study might turn up, that isn't already known about AZ Cypress, it would be interesting what they think the big discovery will be.


----------



## Phillbo (Apr 7, 2004)

So, you go out with your GPS and map out all the illegal trails. Put them in a spread sheet to present to the forest service (and post obsessive amounts of post on here about them) and you are sad they did this to you ? You did this to you and you will continue to do it to you and the rest of the people that enjoy the trails around Sedrama because you need your ego stroked. 


People of the Trail Building forum, I feel for you. To the Mods, thanks for cleaning up the Az forum. You may want to just take the trash out now and save the drama in this section as well.


----------



## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Massive trail closures in Sedona will be TD's legacy.


----------



## swampboy62 (Feb 10, 2009)

Nice that you say "user built trails" instead of "illegally built trails made by someone who knows better."

Shame you don't play by the rules.

Steve Z


----------



## Dirtrider127 (Sep 17, 2010)

swampboy62 said:


> Nice that you say "user built trails" instead of "illegally built trails made by someone who knows better."
> 
> Shame you don't play by the rules.
> 
> Steve Z


General trail question/comment: Wouldn't it be fair to state that about 75% of all trails in the US are "user built"? Those users could be game, hikers, bikers, motos, migrants, equestrians, etc...

If you or others have ever done trail work before, did you ever do it without permission of the land owner/manager? Always?

just saying...not calling you or anyone out so don't take it that way.
Seems like most people that do trail work are in this category


----------



## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

Dirtrider127 said:


> General trail question/comment: Wouldn't it be fair to state that about 75% of all trails in the US are "user built"? Those users could be game, hikers, bikers, motos, migrants, equestrians, etc...
> 
> If you or others have ever done trail work before, did you ever do it without permission of the land owner/manager? Always?
> 
> ...


It has been my experience that most people who do trail work do it within the the confines of the laws of the land and do not need their egos stroked for doing it.


----------



## Mookie (Feb 28, 2008)

Dirtrider127 said:


> General trail question/comment: Wouldn't it be fair to state that about 75% of all trails in the US are "user built"? Those users could be game, hikers, bikers, motos, migrants, equestrians, etc...
> 
> If you or others have ever done trail work before, did you ever do it without permission of the land owner/manager? Always?
> 
> ...





AZ.MTNS said:


> It has been my experience that most people who do trail work do it within the the confines of the laws of the land and do not need their egos stroked for doing it.


Everybody I know builds within the rules. Building outside the legal authority is considered very bad form in my corner of the world and is strongly discouraged.


----------



## rockman (Jun 18, 2004)

AZ.MTNS said:


> It has been my experience that most people who do trail work do it within the the confines of the laws of the land and do not need their egos stroked for doing it.


The ego thing aside, but you are in the White Mountains correct? Were most of your trails that exist today built in cooperation with the USFS? What about Los Burros?

It's been a different road in different places. In Crested Butte, for example, I bet more than half of the exisiting trail system was user-built (ie., illegally built). They started off as motorcycle trails.


----------



## Trail Ninja (Sep 25, 2008)

Dirtrider127 said:


> General trail question/comment: Wouldn't it be fair to state that about 75% of all trails in the US are "user built"? Those users could be game, hikers, bikers, motos, migrants, equestrians, etc...
> 
> If you or others have ever done trail work before, did you ever do it without permission of the land owner/manager? Always?
> 
> ...


Dirtrider, I have built many miles of singletrack & I'd say that over 50% of it was done without the landowner's permission or approval. I expected those trails to be discovered and closed down in some manner. Fortunately most of it wasn't. In most cases the trails were adopted by the landowner or local government and they are still in use today. As a matter of fact, I had the pleasure this summer of riding on a trail that I built on federal government land 46 years ago. It is now part of an official mountain bike trail system in a regional conservation area.

That was then. This is now.

In the last 15 years I've built about 30 miles of singletrack both on private property and on government land and every inch of it has been approved before I started. I don't know how things are in AZ but I build trails all over Canada and I have no problem finding places that the government or private property owners are willing and happy to work with me to put in more and better trails.

It baffles me why any serious trail builder wouldn't go through the process and do it right. Around here "mountain bike trail builder" is a good thing and I'm sure that is why there is so much good mountain biking on Vancouver Island.


----------



## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

Me and everybody I know ride illegal trails where I am. We just don't talk about where they are and we definitely don't draw maps forcing the local leos or park superintendents to act because it's so blatant. There's an uneasy relationship between bikers and hikers/equestrian riders and making it easier for them to complain is not the way to go about things, IMHO.


----------



## AZ (Apr 14, 2009)

rockman said:


> The ego thing aside, but you are in the White Mountains correct? Were most of your trails that exist today built in cooperation with the USFS? What about Los Burros?
> 
> It's been a different road in different places. In Crested Butte, for example, I bet more than half of the exisiting trail system was user-built (ie., illegally built). They started off as motorcycle trails.


Los Burros had a bunch of new single track cut last year under the sanction of the USFS as well as Panorama. That is the result of developing and nurturing good relationships with the land managers, not instigating adversarial relationships. That is not to say all the trails in the W.M.'s are legal but you wont find them plastered all over the internet flying in the face of the land managers either. Everyone knew that all the Sedona intel being strewn all over the interwebs was going to lead to the situation that exists now so I wonder why anyone is surprised.


----------



## bikeabuser (Aug 12, 2012)

girlonbike said:


> Me and everybody I know ride illegal trails where I am. We just don't talk about where they are and we definitely don't draw maps forcing the local leos or park superintendents to act because it's so blatant. There's an uneasy relationship between bikers and hikers/equestrian riders and making it easier for them to complain is not the way to go about things, IMHO.


So no flashing red lights and bullhorns :devil:


----------



## girlonbike (Apr 24, 2008)

bikeabuser said:


> So no flashing red lights and bullhorns :devil:


Somehow that seems to only get you pulled over!


----------

