This 45-million dollars worth of foot and bicycle trails is a really big national parks project. It will be very popular and may save lives by taking bicycles of the Grant Teton National Park roads, which can be very crowded and have to accommodate huge RVs.
On the other hand it may damage wildlife habitat and provoke confrontations with bears.
Story in the Jackson Hole News and Guide. By Cory Hatch.
Post 1036
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
They had better get all of their funding in place. The Dickster will be out of office soon and the gravy train will be stopping in some other state. Although the Snake River Canyon between Alpine and Jackson is a much better route than it has been in years past. How many trillions were spent for this stretch in sweetheart contacts of Mr. Cheneys co horts?
The paths south of town are pretty cool but I bet we paid a bunch for them too.
That sounds kind of cool. Can I ask why it may cause bear problems? (Not being rude or anything, just want to know.)
There are a lot of bears and moose in Grand Teton. As you go north in the Park, the bears are more and more of the grizzly variety.
Most of the construction will be near the Moose to Wilson back road in the southern end of the park and to the west of the main park road past Jenny Lake. There are moose and some bears and the paths will cross it.
Over the years I’d say there have been a fair number of bad incidents with habituated black bears in Grand Teton. I don’t know enough about the project, however, to have any real opinion pro or con.
Here is a link to the Record of Decision and summary of the final environmental impact statement for the details.
Gotcha. Thanks
Have visited Teton NP many times & I hope that the Wildlife folks had some imput into trail location & such. As Teton is one of the more scenic parks & given the wealth in the valley , it was preordained that bike paths & such would be expanded. The 5 or 6 foot trails that start in the Valley & assend west up the drainages to the divide are pretty much urbanized because of the volume of foot traffic. Now more of the east slopes of the Teton’s will be urbanized. The “critters”–unfortunately–will have to adapt to increased human use or die. Isn’t this the story all over the world?