To be fair this isn't just a cycling issue, hikers need this as well.
There is really only one long distance hiking trail in the Adirondacks, the Northville Placid Trail. We can debate mid-length trails like the Cranberry Lake 50, but if a reasonably fit hiker can do it in a 2 day weekend (or an average hiker in 3), it's hardly long distance. Beyond that there are some concept trails like the NCST which has loads of road walking just to try to make a long distance trail.
Unfortunately the unit structure prevents connected long distance trails from being built because each unit needs an amended UMP before a trail can be completed (and easements need an RMP). If you know even a little about the process you know it's complicated in many ways. As a great example, you may know Lake George Wild Forest has never had a UMP. Behind the High Peaks it's the most visited single unit in the Adirondacks.
Why doesn't it have one? Well it's actually extremely complicated.
- First off is money and resources. The DEC hasn't been funded properly since the Pataki administration and likely even then was below ideal levels, but it's never gotten better since then. At the same time the forest preserve has grown. Less money, more land to manage.
- Second is legal battles. The Lake George unit has actually been within 1 year of finalizing a UMP multiple times and each time a lawsuit pops up.
To build multi-unit trails, you need to amend every single UMP. Seeing how tough it is to even create or amend one UMP gives you insight into amending multiple at once. If I trail were to traverse the Adirondacks, it might traverse 10+ units. Imagine trying to amend 10 UMPs all at once to build a single connected trail? It's probably not going to happen.
However, if you consider a bike can make easy work of road sections and even use them to it's advantage (resupply in towns between units), you really can navigate the unit level approach. Each unit could have a bike specific trail (ideally 2, traversing NS/EW) that traverses the unit to an egress point. What the cyclist does once they get to the end is totally up to them. But they would essentially be able to hop units creating whatever long distance route they fancied.
How is this different then what already exist? On the surface it's really not any different. However, the lack of designed for bike trails leads to unnecessary user conflicts (some made up, some real). The biggest one is that hikers suspect "their" trails are being damaged by bikes. This is both true and untrue and I'll touch on that below.
The mountain biking scene in the Adirondacks is much better than it has ever been, but most of that is dense trail systems confined to local municipal land or private land. Where the failure is at is the long distance, *"wilderness style" bikepacking. The DEC has yet to implement it's general concept for multi-use MTB trails within the forest preserve. Multiple UMP/RMP have been approved to allow better MTB access to the Forest Preserve but those concepts have never been implemented.
Some examples the Township 33 RMP (Speculator Tree Farm, where Oak Mountain is located). The Moose River Plains UMP. Speculator was approved in 2024 and the Moose River UMP almost a decade ago, complete with IMBA written concept plan for the unit. No work was ever done on the MRP beyond adding some disc to largely unmaintained trails.
In a nutshell, the concepts are this:
- A hub and spoke model for MTB/bikepacking within the forest preserve
- Hub: Dense concentration multi-use (but bike design) trail systems would be built around population centers or easily accessible areas. These aren't bike only trails, hikers, skiiers, and adaptive users would still have access. The bike design simply prevents erosion that is often seen on non biking trails.
- Spoke: Longer distance "hiking style" travel trails would link to other trail systems and towns. This would allow for longer distance bikepacking routes off-pavement using the Forest Preserve. These trails would generally be existing trails that require some work to build to a multi-use standard but don't necessarily require outright new trails.
One thing it may be useful to educate the non cycling trail user groups on is that building a cycling trail to use specification mitigates trail damage by the very design. It's not anathema to the way new hiking trails are being built in the heavily traveled steep areas of the Forest Preserve (the High Peaks and surrounding mountainous units). Design matters more than use.
*I often use the term wilderness style. That's because in the Adirondacks the difference between wild forest (where bikes are legal on almost every trail) and wilderness (where bikes are not) is virtually indistinguishable to most users. Aside from that many wilderness areas were at some point heavily developed and trammeled by man. In fact, one could probably make a compelling argument that some of the most wild and least visited (most untrammeled by man today) are in the wild. This is not really any different than a wild forest with a PFAR/admin road.
