Land Exchange News/Saturday Ride

Show Low South Land Exchange Completed: The United States Forest Service has confirmed that the Show South land exchange was completed. Title to 980 acres in the northeastern section of the Buena Vista trail area officially passed into private ownership on September 20, 2023. What this means is that the official Buena Vista trail from approximately BV 10 to BV 19 along with the following social trails are now on private property: Roughneck, Show Low Creek, Fernau's Fantasy, Naked, Ron's, Project X. The lower 1/3 of Petrified is also now in private hands. It is unclear how soon development will occur, but keep this fact in mind when hiking or biking in the impacted area.

A hiker along Roughneck reacts to the land

exchange news during the Halloween ride

on October 28th.

What this means is that there is some real urgency to get USFS approval to start building alternative trails in the spring. STBVF and TRACKS representatives are meeting with the USFS next week to try and get a timeline in shape to make this happen ASAP. Fortunately, most of the heavy lifting on that was done this summer with the completion of the Heritage Study. The completion of the land exchange also means that our friend and mascot Walter will be packing his bags and moving very soon.

Saturday Group Ride: This Saturday's group MTB ride will be in the Buena Vista area. Meet at the Buena Vista trailhead south of Show Low at 8:00 a.m. for an expected 12-15 mile ride. The ride should be completed about 10:00 a.m. This is a friendly and social-paced "no-drop" ride, although intermediate MTB skills are recommended.

STBVF Board Meeting: Just a final reminder that the STBVF governing board is meeting on Thursday, November 2 from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. at the White Mountain Advantage Realty Office in Show Low. Anyone is free to join us for the meeting. For the complete agenda, see last week's blog post.