CHAPTER REPORT FOR LEWIS MORRIS
March 2021
Greg Murray
Synposis:
- New Trails Director Amy Lutsko began tenure in second half of 2020. Has carte blanche to design and implement her vision.
- Seeks to revamp Lewis Morris, Pyramid Mountain and Tourne and is drafting a strategic plan. Current focus on Lewis Morris and Pyramid (latter is no bikes).
- For Lew Mo, I have spoken with Amy several times at length, and submitted a detailed proposal in late 2020, attached.
- We connected again in Feb to review her initial plan, which calls for a 5-year program to completely redo the network in Lew Mo, with 80% all-new trails. Fire roads will remain and some short stretches of original singletrack.
- Her plan doesn’t address all of the recommendations I’ve made, but she is very open to them, including new trails in the North and South extremes of the park, technical/skills trails, sidewinders, ∙ Work to begin in 2021 with the following:
- Reopen/refurbish “Gilligan’s”/ “Boat Trail” as an alternate route for Patriot’s Path
- Build a new “Orange” trail on east side of Lewis Morris (see map)
- Reblaze existing network to make it easier to navigate
- I have started volunteer outreach and have secured approx 15 so far.
Other points of discussion:
- There will be no more “mudder” events in the park.
- Work will be done by locally sourced volunteers and Americorps, through a combination of weekday and weekend work
- Machine-built trails are a possibility but not currently approved by MCPC. May depend on how much work can be done in how much time by how many volunteers.
- Trail designations will be singletrack (hiker/biker), Multiuse (hiker/biker/horse) and Shared (rail trail/commuter…e.g. Columbia Trail, Traction Line)
