The End Of The Dig

As soon as the old man came out of the trees, I knew he wasn't a hiker. He wasn't dressed for a hike -- his clothes were more the around-the-house variety -- and he had no backpack and no dog.

Something told me we were in trouble.

After an afternoon of digging, we were at the sweet moment when our new jump was almost ready to test. It needed only a few small alterations, but the feeling I got from this guy told me we weren't going to hit it that day. There was only one reason an old man would venture by himself to this spot, and we all knew what it was. Still, we offered a friendly greeting as he approached, hoping that our instincts were off.

"What are you guys making here?" he asked.

"Bike jump," I said. "Just tuning up the trail a bit."

"I see," he said, taking in the obstacle for a moment. "I own this land."

Silence. None of us had a reply, but we nodded to acknowledge the statement. We had known there were houses in the area, and that some of the land the trail crossed could be private property. But it seemed unlikely that we would ever come face-to-face with any landowners so deep in the valley.


"I've been trying to keep people off this trail for years after my home was burglarized by a mountain biker," he said.

"Well ..." I began. But there were too many curiosities with that sentence for me to address at once. After a minute, I explained that we weren't part of a criminal enterprise -- a readily apparent fact since two of us had our small children along with us, who gripped half-sized shovels and stared at the old man as we talked. Between the kids and our high-end downhill bikes, we didn't resemble a street gang.

"But this is an illegal trail," he said. "Even on the areas that aren't my land, the Forestry Service wouldn't approve of you building stuff like this," he said, gesturing to a tabletop. We had built that one too. I didn't mention that.

"I know what you're saying," I said. "But we're not here to hurt anyone or complicate things for land owners. We're just looking to have some fun with these bikes."

He seemed to consider this for a moment. In that instant it occurred to me that maybe -- just maybe -- he might not do the predictable thing and ask us to leave. I imagined he might realize that we, a group of 30-year-old men with shovels, children and jobs waiting for us on Monday, were not criminals, but just guys who wanted to enjoy the simple pleasures of sculpting dirt and riding bikes for an afternoon.

"I'm going to need to take some pictures of this to send to the Sheriff's office," he began, snapping me out of my fantasy. "They've been very interested in everything that's happened around here since that mountain biker broke into my house. And they definitely wouldn't approve of ..."

But by then we were already gathering up shovels and children's coats for the walk back to the truck. He seemed to feel somewhat guilty about asking us to leave -- he kept trying to make suggestions about other ways we could route the trail around his property as we packed -- but the result was the same regardless: Another trail had been compromised.


Still, that wasn't the most depressing thing about the encounter. The truth is, people will still ride the trail, though you won't catch us digging at that spot again. The most depressing part was the reaction of the kids. They seemed confused and saddened by the encounter, and if you've ever tried to articulate liability law to a six-year-old, you'll know that our explanations were not helpful.

In the end, I wasn't sure whether I should resent the old man or the system that supports his logic. When someone files a lawsuit against a landowner because they crashed their bike on a jump -- or slipped on a sidewalk or fell down some steps or whatever -- it's a deflection of responsibility that should appall everyone. Yet it happens routinely. There's a reason personal injury attorneys can afford all those billboards and daytime TV ads.

I don't know the answer to this problem. But I do know that when building jumps and berms for bicycles in the wilderness commonly amounts to a crime, something has gone profoundly wrong with the way the world works -- something more complicated than an 800-word essay can address.

Luckily, I don't need to dwell on this point, because my friends and our kids still have other places to dig. But if we spot an out-of-place old man walking up any of those trails, we'll save ourselves the effort and gather the shovels first.