Excellent Conditions Abounding at Brown County

The trails are beginning to mature for the season and get into really prime condition. When it does rain, they are recovering extremely quickly. As long as you avoid riding in the pouring rain or within 12-24 hours of a deluge, you're probably going to find pretty pristine singletrack. The volunteers have been out working very hard, and their work is not going unnoticed. Nice job, folks. This has improved the trails even more. Brown County is known for its pristine, flowing singletrack, and it just keeps getting better. I did a day/night ride last night and the trail conditions are about as good as I've seen them. The plants are growing, the trees are budding, the flowers are out, and the animals are scurrying about. It's beautiful!

Here is an excellent blog post about Brown County with lots of beautiful pictures (like the one above taken by the author) and a fantastic google map that pretty much sums up what it is like right now. Check it out.

Speaking of google maps, we've been improving and tweaking our Brown County Mountain Biking Google Earth map lately, and it's dialed in! You'll need to download Google Earth to view it, but it's entirely worth it. It's all very accurate and up-to-date. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

Article About New Trails at Harmonie State Park Features BCSP Trails

There is a good article about the new professionally-built trails at Harmonie State Park in southwestern Indiana in the Evansville Courier Press. It references the success of Brown County State Park as a major crux of the article. Check it out here.

Free State Park Admission on Sunday, May 3...and May 2 too (see details below)

Get your carload of family and friends in the gate of any Indiana state park, lake or state forest without spending a dime on Sunday, May 3, as part of the annual Welcome Back Weekend, the traditional lid-lifter of the spring recreation season.
"This a great time to visit a DNR property," said Ginger Murphy, assistant director for stewardship in the DNR Division of State Parks and Reservoirs. "It's a chance for people who've never visited or haven't recently stopped by to discover a state treasure and save a few dollars at the same time."
Even veteran park-goers will notice something new or updated at most properties. Features include the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Plaza opening in June at Lincoln State Park, new electric campsites at Ouabache, comfort stations under construction at Clifty Falls and Lincoln, new Gus Grissom Memorial exhibits at Spring Mill State Park, improved mountain bike trails at several properties and more than 300 new interpretive wayside signs all around the state to help you enjoy and better understand what you see. For a complete list of improvements and additions, see http://www.in.gov/dnr/parklake/files/sp-Property-Updates2009_Successes2008.pdf.
"We hope people will like what they see and buy a $36 Annual Entrance Pass ($18 for ages 65 and older), which will get their carload through any entrance gate for the rest of 2009."
Normal weekend gate fees for most properties are $5 per day for an in-state vehicle and $7 per day for an out-of-state vehicle. During the week, most fees are $4 for in-state and $7 for out-of-state. All other fees will be in effect. The only thing waived is the daily entrance normally charged for any car, truck, bicycle or pedestrian. The entrance fee for Historic Prophetstown at Prophetstown State Park remains in effect.
May 3 is the second consecutive day you can enter a state park or lake without paying a gate fee, but there's a condition. That's because May 2 is annual INShape Indiana DNR Day. Registered INShape participants will be e-mailed a coupon by the end of April. That coupon, when shown at the gate, gets the carload in free on Saturday, May 2 to participate in walks and other activities.
To register as an INShape participant, see www.INShape.IN.gov. To see scheduled walks and activities, visit www.dnr.in.gov/healthy. Information about INShape Indiana also is available at 1-800-433-0746. The INShape coupon is not valid for entrance or camping on Friday night, May 1 or at state forest properties.

Salt Creek Greenway in Nashville Needs Mountain Biker Support

As we’re certain you are aware, the federal government recently passed a stimulus bill to help jump-start the economy. In that bill is approximately $20,000,000 for the state of Indiana to use in its “Transportation Enhancement” program. It is that program, administered by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), that funds pedestrian trails in Indiana. Brown County’s Salt Creek Trail is aggressively seeking a portion of the funding. We need your help.

What we would like for you to do is e-mail State Representative Eric Koch (h65@iga.in.gov ), State Representative Peggy Welch (h60@iga.in.gov), State Senator Vi Simpson (s40@iga.in.gov) and Lt. Governor Becky Skillman (http://www.in.gov/lg/2935.htm from her Lt. Governor web site) and urge them to support funding for the Salt Creek Trail from the Transportation Enhancement program.

Both the west end of the trail (from CVS to the YMCA) and the east end (from the outdoor swimming pool in Brown County State Park to the west boundary of the school corporation’s Eagle Park) should be under construction within the next year. We have about half of the funds needed for the middle section of the trail, which will connect the east and west ends. Stimulus funding could put us over the top and hasten the completion of the full 2.5-mile, paved trail, a free, public facility for walking, running, biking, etc.

What will the trail do for our county? The recreation and health benefits of trails are obvious. Not so obvious is what communities that have trails are discovering–that trails are economic development engines. They create new businesses (bike shops, ice cream and drink stops, etc.), increase property values along the path, and bring new tourism dollars into the community.

Completion of the Salt Creek Trail has become urgent because of the successful Brown County State Park mountain-biking system, which was recently listed by a national magazine as the second-best mountain-biking trail network in the country. That trail is already bringing in new visitors and money, and as word spreads it will continue to increase in traffic in the weeks and months ahead. Completion of the Salt Creek Trail will allow mountain-bikers easy access from the State Park to Jefferson Street in Nashville, where their dollars will start showing up in shops, restaurants and lodging establishments.

We appreciate your help and look forward to completing the trail!

Bob Kirlin
Chairman, Salt Creek Trail Committee

Tom Tuley
Vice-chairman, Salt Creek Trail Committee