Ted Stroll tells another Maah Daah Hey Trail Lie.

You'd think Ted Stroll would shy away from writing about the Maah Daah Hey Trail after in a previous blog, I showed everyone that he didn't know what he was talking about.  That blog is located here: http://preservingthepct.blogspot.com/2017/10/ted-stroll-tells-another-little-fib.html

That blog post shows that Ted Stroll provided the incorrect information and exaggerated about the MDHT in an interview with the Frontlines Podcast.  But now, Ted doubles down on his lies, in of all places his testimony to the US House of Representatives Federal Lands Subcommittee

Ted writes

Ted laments that you cannot carry your bikes on the Wilderness part of the trail, then he seems to indicate that if you ride your bike using Theodore Roosevelt National Park roads, it is very dangerous.  He says that "cyclist have to truncate their once-in-a-lifetime adventure and risk their safety in the bargain..."

Ted seems to think that you need to use these dangerous roads to detour around the Wilderness.  This is totally not the case.  Ted is taking text from two different things and putting them together.

I have taken a screenshot of from the Maah Daah Hey Trail Website map.  I added green shading to show the area of the Northern Unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Using a thick black line, I show the route of the detour that is described on the Maah Daah Hey Trail Association Website.

You can see clearly that the detour around the Wilderness Area IS NOT using the dangerous roads that the National Park Service described within the park.  In fact, the whole detour is outside of the park.  The detour goes down a lonely gravel road for 5 miles, then goes on a paved State Highway for one mile, then goes done another lonely gravel road for another 5 miles.

Again, clearly Ted Stroll got it wrong.

And he keeps getting it wrong.

Ted writes

In this paragraph is gleaming that the Park Superintendent (local land manager) should have the power to allow mountain biking in the Theodore Roosevelt Wilderness if she wants to. But will she want to?

Ted goes on to write that a local observer has reported the segment in the Northern Unit of the Park hasn't been maintained for over 4 years.   Sounds like Ted is BASHING the local land manager for not having the trail cleared.  I'm sure the Park Superintendent is SUPER THRILLED this is being reported to Congress.

Jackalopes are rarely seen in the Wild

Some Unnamed Mythical Local Observer reports the trail has not been maintain for 4 years, and Ted is using it in his testimony to Congress.  How bad is that?  Who is this Unnamed Mythical Observer.  Perhaps it is the same person who saw a Jackalope in the Wilderness part of the park.

For one thing, that local observer may not know that Trails in Wilderness Areas must be minimally maintained.  Maintainers cannot mow the trail because motorized equipment is not allowed in Wilderness Areas.  All of that may have lead the local observer to believe the trail in the Wilderness Area had not been maintained.

Ted Stroll just gave a black eye to the very Park Superintendent that he hopes will allow mountain bikes in that Wilderness Area if HR1347 is passed by Congress.  Good luck with that.

No wonder the International Mountain Biking Association has dropped its support of the Sustainable Trails Coalition Bill.  IMBA has worked hard to make great relationships with land managers, and here comes STC bashing those same land managers.

Like I've said before, all STC is doing is hurting the sport of mountain biking. 


Ted's written testimony to the Federal Lands Subcommittee
https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/testimony_stroll.pdf

IMBA's Testimony not supporting the STC Bill is located here:
https://www.imba.com/sites/default/files/HR1349_IMBA-Testimony_12-6-17.pdf