Closing Monarch Crest to Bikes?

There's talk, albeit nothing concrete yet.

The popular Monarch Crest Trail near Salida uses parts of the Continental Divide Trail. A new proposed directive from the United States Forest Service, issued in June, calls into question whether mountain biking is a legitimate use on the trail. Read more about it in Bicycle Magazine.

The directive does not specifically ban bikes, and both the Forest Service and the CDT's private partner organization, the Continental Divide Trail Alliance, are receptive to mountain bike use on some portions of the trail. But that hasn't stopped the local bike community from cranking into action. I rode the crest Sunday, and the folks who run the shuttle van were passing around a petition to the forest service to keep the trail open.

We'll see what happens. It would be a shame to lose such a great trail, I will say, though, that it needs a little more maintenance, given the traffic it gets.