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whitebark
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whitebark
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PostFri Jun 07, 2013 10:55 am 
I took a quick jaunt up E. Tiger from the Tiger Summit trailhead to check out this latest creation of the DNR. There has been a lot of changes in this area recently. The summit of E. Tiger sports two new picnic tables set on a gravel pad, along with new signage.
East Tiger Trail
East Tiger Trail
East Tiger Trail
East Tiger Trail
Nice view of Mt. Rainier when I was up there. The new trail, marked by a sign, starts next to the picnic area:
East Tiger Trail
East Tiger Trail
I followed the trail downhill from the summit of E. Tiger. The new trail is definitely designed for mountain bikers - it's full of rollercoaster humps that must be fun on a bike but are a bit annoying for hikers. The banked corners are impressively huge. In a short distance the trail crosses the E. Tiger access road, then continues downhill through a somewhat dreary second-growth forest. In 1.4 miles the trail ends at a junction with the Preston RR Trail, near its start next to the main logging road. For hikers, the new trail is a useful, if not particularly scenic, link to E. Tiger coming from the west. However, the mountain bike fun features on the trail make hiking it a bit tedious. The DNR could have toned down the roller coaster effect a bit for the benefit of hikers using the trail. I saw a trail crew working on something below the E. Tiger summit access road - is a new trail in work?

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tigermn
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PostFri Jun 07, 2013 11:38 am 
Guess it's been a while since I've been up there. Will have to check it out. Cut down on the road walking anyway.

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whitebark
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whitebark
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PostFri Jun 07, 2013 2:00 pm 
Another way to avoid some road walking coming up from Tiger Summit Trailhead toward E Tiger is to use the Sally's Summit trail, an old volunteer built route. Both the start and end of the trail are very obscure but once you find it, it is a good walking route that has been recently worked on. Unfortunately the mountain bikers have found it too, although not in great numbers yet. Overuse of that route could bring down the wrath of the DNR.

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sledndog
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PostSat Jun 08, 2013 10:12 am 
To shed some light on this new trail for those who may not already know - the reason it feels like it was designed for mountain bikers is because it was designed mtn bikers. The reason it looks like it was built for mtn bikers is because it was built by mtn bikers. This is work responsibly designed and built by the Evergreen mtb community with the oversight and blessing of the DNR. As a participant in both the hiking and mtn biking community, this is a beautifully constructed trail from a mtn bikers perspective. Agreed - to hike it, it seems an awkwardly tedious route but that's by design for the mtb community. DNR gave Evergreen the opportunity to build it this way since it was their community that was doing 100% of the work and providing of needed materials. As a mtn biker, it really is a thing of beauty and honestly, one of the best things about it is that it's a shared user group trail. As a hiker it probably wouldn't be my first choice of trail perhaps, but it's available to me should I choose to. Evergreen will also be doing 100% of the maintenance as well. Incidentally, EMBA (Evergreen Mtn Bike Alliance) is also constructing additional new trail that shoots off from the new E. Tiger trail towards Silent Swamp. Again, this will all be 100% mtb community built and maintained with DNR's blessing. So, this hopefully explains what you're seeing new on East Tiger. As a participant in both groups I think this is an awesome opportunity for the mtn biking community and is very satisfying to know it's being done responsibly with the intent of sharing with others.

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nuclear_eggset
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PostSat Jun 08, 2013 8:56 pm 
Interesting! Thanks for some of the back story, sledndog.

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boot up
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boot up
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PostSun Jun 09, 2013 8:18 am 
This is the trail that the hiking community has been asking for, and pushing mtn biking into. The "some of my best friends are mtn bikers, but keep them off of my trail and they can make their own trail." attitude created this. Don't hike this trail unless you like to have a mtn bike come up on you at high speeds. Anyway, there are a bazillion miles of barely used "hiker only" trail on Tiger for you to use as an alternative. Although I know its difficult to restrain the greed. This trail was planned and created by the new gen of mtn bikers, now that all the mellow, slow-riding, technical single-track folks have been pushed out of mtn biking due to hikers pushing for banning bicycles from anything except high speed moto trails and roads. There is some controversy on the "flowy" character of this trail even in the mtn bike world. But the Old School slow and technical riders are being told to chill out and make way for the new gen. Enjoy what you have created by not wanting to Share the Sandbox. There are plenty of hiker-only alternatives.

friluftsliv
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joker
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PostSun Jun 09, 2013 9:12 am 
This is great news. If I get back on my old Mtn Bike, I'm definitely curious to try this trail out - sounds like my cup of tea. There's enough terrain at this close-in park for both user groups, so it's awesome to see DNR allowing and a group of bikers investing in the creation of some new trails for biking there. This strikes me as being a very reasoned and responsible way of sharing the sandbox!

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joker
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PostSun Jun 09, 2013 9:38 am 
boot up wrote:
Don't hike this trail unless you like to have a mtn bike come up on you at high speeds.
Quoted for truth about what happens when bikes ride on trails that have a design that allows for such speeds. Which to be clear I think is an entirely appropriate thing to expect on this particular trail.

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whitebark
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PostSun Jun 09, 2013 9:48 am 
Ahh, I knew I was kicking a bit of a hornet's nest when I did this post! Mea culpa. I accept that these new trails are primarily for mountain biker use and given all of the volunteer effort being put into them, they can design them the way they see fit. The case could be made for creating a more normal hiker trail that roughly parallels the new E. Tiger trail, since the current trail as designed with its high speed and "flowy" features is not a very good hiking route . This route on the west side of E Tiger is just too useful for hikers to ignore. There is more good news for bikers in this area. Two new trails are being built in the area s - the new Silent Swamp trail and another one going downhill to from the new E Tiger trail to the the new SST.

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