Everything Horses and Livestock® Magazine

Everything Horses and Livestock Magazine ®

Trail Chatter By Erin Glassman

will be taking out the three day waiting period to reserve a site as it has been in the past.” Skinner stated talks are on hold with the district office regarding the campground while the Covid outbreak is ongoing. “We’re having a little bit of a hard time communicating with the district office with the restrictions in place,” she said. “We do have some possibilities lined up in the event that they do close the campground and best case scenario we could get it leased to a private individual.” In the meantime however, once restrictions are lifted we can help try to keep the campground open by doing our part to camp at Clinton Lake! Skinner and a lot of great volunteers have been putting in a lot of hard work cleaning up and marking the approximate 50 miles of trails getting them ready for riders and those are open now. You can follow updates about Rockhaven on Friends of Rockhaven Park on Facebook and as always join your local chapter of Backcountry Horsemen of America (Sunflower Chapter, Saddle Ridge Chapter or the State Chapter). We have our updates listed on the Back Country Horsemen of Kansas Group on Facebook. Stay healthy out there folks, get some good time out on the trails and help do your part to keep us all on the trails by being good trail stewards! Thanks and until the next go, I tip my hat. Erin

2020 seems to be a year that’s trying to tell us to “hold its beer and watch this!” for sure! We’ve seen the variety of sayings and jokes about Covid-19, social distancing and our choice of lifestyle as equestrians. There are quite a few sayings I’m sure we can all relate to, I know that really other than not eating out as much, making fewer trips to the store and, oh yeah, wearing a mask everywhere public when I do emerge from my cave that my life in general has not changed vastly for me at the moment. I know there are people that have been impacted severely either in their health or economically; I have a great feeling that through this time of hardship that the best of humanity will shine and we will be able to bring ourselves together to help those of us who have fallen from this to gradually have life as usual again someday. As trail riders, we have been pretty fortunate that our state parks have been staying during this pandemic so that we may have our outlet with our horses. Most of our trails are even back open after the damage that had been done from the flooding of 2019. One area of concern that Kansas trail riders need to keep an eye is the Rockhaven Equestrian Campground. This campground is currently

run by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Unless usage of this campground increases in 2020, it is very possible that the USCOE will close down the campground for usage in 2021. Data shows that it is only getting 6% utilization and the Corps needs a 20% usage to justify cost. Another equestrian campground in the Corps of Engineers district at Truman Lake’s Berry Bend was closed down last year. It was the only other federal equestrian campground in this district. Due to the campground being under federal management, it is currently under temporary closure orders to the public due to Covid restrictions and is projected to reopen June 1st. Whether or not this will impact the utilization data study and decision to keep the campground open is unclear. Sunflower Chapter Back Country Horsemen of Kansas representative and volunteer Diana Skinner reported that when Rockhaven opens back up, reservations are supposed to be taken through recreation. gov. “Fortunately or unfortunately, the only way to do a reservation or pay for a site will be to do it through this website. This could be a challenge for those who do not have a credit card for whatever reason,” stated Skinner. “One good thing about this, once they get the website back up and running is that they

19 Everything Horses and Livestock® | May 2020 | EHALmagazine.com