Trail riders question commissioners about closures in Mingo park
A group of about a dozen equestrians mustered their forces Thursday to find some answers to issues that have come before their 100-member club, the Mountain Valley Trail Riders, about the partial closure of a bridle trail in Mingo Creek County Park.
Elaine Clemens Mowl of Washington, vice president of the organization and someone who regularly saddles up her quarter horse at the park, addressed the county commissioners about rumors that Mingo was going to be off-limits to horseback riding.
Mowl was glad to learn it was just a rumor, one that may have been hitched to the closure of a segment of Mingo’s 18-mile perimeter trail.
Commissioner Harlan Shober, who received phone calls from constituents with equine interest, said a section of the trail had to be rebuilt. “One of the problems we had is it’s rainy season and the destruction occurred when it was wet,” Shober said. Culverts had to be replaced so that the area drains properly.
Lisa Cessna, executive director of the Washington County Planning Commission, whose department oversees the parks, said because the damage was caused by riders using the trail during inclement weather, Parks Superintendent Kevin Garrison now has the authority to close all or parts of the bridle trail.
Horseback riders would be notified by postings, via email and through the county website. Those who travel the park by hoof must register for a permit.
Cessna said the closure took place over the summer and the route remains closed.
Mowl asked if the parks department is going to close part of the trail, “At least mark a detour for people that don’t know the park as well as a lot of us do. We don’t want people riding down the middle of Mingo Park because they’re lost.”
She was part of a group of volunteers that helped to clear bridle trails in Mingo the 1980s, offering advice on where slopes are too steep. They’re used not only by those riding horses and ponies but by pedestrians, dog walkers and mountain bicyclists.
She invited the commissioners to attend the Mountain Valley Trail Riders’ board of directors’ meeting on the third Wednesday of the month in the same Courthouse Square meeting room that the board of commissioners uses.
Cessna said the trail-riding organization is “pretty much self-policing.”
Asked outside the meeting about the damage to part of the trail, Mowl said, “Pennsylvania is a cloudy state, we all know that. We have a lot of trees that block the sun and we all know that.”