Talk:Taconic Crest Trail

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Multi-use access[edit]

I can find only one website (http://xystwhat.com/get-out-your-hiking-boots/) saying the Taconic Crest Trail is fully closed to mountain bikes and motorized vehicles. It's not a source of any merit I can identify, and no author is credited. The wording is also quite similar to the former no mountain bikes/motorized vehicles language at this page, so it may have been pulled from Wikipedia in the first place.

As cited in the article, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's (NYSDEC) Taconic Ridge State Forest map (http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/108402.html) has the TCT labeled as multi-use, with explicit provisions (albeit by icon) for hiking snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, snowmobiling, and horseback riding.

Additionally, the NYSDEC page for Taconic Ridge State Forest (http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/72874.html) says "Snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, snowmobiling and horseback riding are allowed within the property but there are no designated trails or maintained areas for these activities." I would assume this means there are no designated trails *specifically* for these activities, but it's possible that could be interpreted as meaning any existing trails are not for those activities. I also think that later interpretation would be convoluted as hell and deeply nonsensical.

That said, if one also considers that the NYSDEC maps also show the trail through Hopkins Forest as explicitly multi-use when Williams College, the owner of Hopkins Forest, says it isn't (https://hmf.williams.edu/public/trail-map/) there may be grounds to mistrust their maps. But again, the property isn't New York's, so should they be expected to be definitive on the topic?

Also, two sources likely to be reliable (but not really citable) say or imply biking/snowmobile/equestrian use is allowed on much of the TCT:

http://thomannengineering.com/mtnbike/taconiccrest
http://web.williams.edu/wp-etc/ces/taconic-crest-trail.pdf (though the later implies that ATV use is legitimate—which numerous local media articles (a good example at http://blog.timesunion.com/outdoors/hikers-vs-atvs/13/) would indicate they aren't).

I think it's pretty safe to say that TCT is foot-only in Pittsfield State Forest (where it's paralleled by the Taconic Skyline Trail) and Hopkins Forest, but beyond that—and certainly in Taconic Ridge State Forest—I'd say the rest of it is multi-use.

Cosmocatalano (talk) 07:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]