LINES IN THE DIRT STONE WALLED

PART THREE

THE BATTLE FOR TRAIL ACCESS (CONTINUED)

IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE SIGN, THE TRAIL MIGHT BE INVISIBLE.

Brett Russ peers down at a small patch of dirt beneath a blanket of dead leaves. The dirt becomes a trail that winds through the forest for four glorious miles, he explains on this sunny November day. Some think it is one of the finest singletracks in central Massachusetts.

Russ grimaces as he stares at it. “It’s crazy how quickly the trail disappears when nobody’s on it,” he says.

The singletrack stems from Prison Camp Road outside Rutland, a colonial town that was settled in 1722. Russ, who is 42 and has close-cropped hair like a cadet, moved to Rutland 15 years ago for its schools and open space. It wasn’t long before he discovered on his mountain bike the 35-mile trail network inside the Ware River Watershed. The network spiders through vast tracts of open space and flora, with a soft, sandy, glacial underbelly allowing for smooth dirt trails instead of the rockier tundra that exists most everywhere else in central Mass.

It’s seasonably chilly today, but a perfect day to ride a bike. Just down the road from this singletrack, scuffed trees and oil smears on the ground linger from a recent clear cut. Hunters chug by in pickups with their dogs in the front seat. Soon those dogs will ramble through the 25,000-acre watershed in search of game. A man motors past on an ATV and waves.

Russ and other local residents used to be able to pedal from their homes to the Ware River Watershed then continue riding here for hours, often without seeing anyone else. Some of the network dates back 30 years, what people in the area call “legacy trails,” originally worn in by dirtbikes. But recently it had grown to include some new routes, user created again, though it is hard to say by whom. In all, about 10 new miles of trail got added over a decade, and everyone agrees that multiple user groups were involved in their construction.

A lot of the Ware River Watershed’s story bobs and weaves from there depending on the source, but this much is clear: The new trails drew the ire of the wrong people at the Commonwealth. And in September 2014, effective immediately, all trails suddenly became off-limits inside the watershed.

Technically, they had been off-limits since a law prohibited off-road mountain biking in the watershed in 1994, but the ban was not enforced for 20 years. Now, mounted to a tree just overhead this glorious singletrack, a sign reads: “Trail closed to all access.”

If Russ wants to ride his mountain bike, he has to drive 30 minutes each way, he says. So do about 50 other once-regular WRW riders. Ranger presence at the watershed has increased substantially. Surveillance cameras dot the forest canopy in hidden locations. Some at the Division of Water Supply Protection (DWSP), which manages security in the watershed, and at the Massachusetts Water Resources