By Denise Lana,
Decorah’s Van Peenen Park (Photo by Samantha Ludeking)
Discussion of permitted uses in Decorah’s Van Peenen Park are expected to continue as groups of trail users navigate disagreements over safety and sustainability.
Decorah Park and Rec Director Mark Holtey is hoping members of the Winneshiek County Saddle Club and the Decorah Human Powered Trails mountain biking group can reach a suitable resolution. The next park and rec board meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, and Holtey is planning to invite members from each group to participate in round table discussions.
Trailblazing
More than 50 years ago, members of the Winneshiek County Saddle Club approached former Decorah Park and Recreation Director Bob Hunt with an offer. In the early 1970s, there were no trails on top of Ice Cave Hill and Dunning Springs in Decorah, and the club offered to create a network of trails in that area. Hunt readily agreed, according to Barb Kellogg, who joined the saddle club in 1972. Kellogg said she and an estimated 40 people took to their horses, spending three days blazing trails through the forested bluffs. The club also established two trail access points near Quarry Hill Road and the Ice Cave Road intersection as well as a second access trail to the west of Ice Cave.
“These trails could be used by any park goer and, because the horse people built the trails, we were under the impression members of the horse groups would always be able to use them,” Kellogg said.
In 1976, area residents Barbara Van Peenen and her husband Hubert J. Van Peenen gifted 120 acres of their land — located north of Ice Cave and Dunning Springs trails — to the city, with the intention it be turned into a park. According to a letter from Hubert Van Peenen to the chairman of the Decorah Park Commission, the land gift was contingent upon the condition “that the land be left in a state of nature as a wildlife preserve with facilities only for walking, horseback riding, backpacking, including simple camping, not requiring a developed site.” Van Peenen’s intent was for the land to be added to the adjacent park areas to encourage nature study.
Kellogg recalled being allowed to ride her horse along prairie trails and even on some black top trails in Decorah’s Palisades Park area during the 1970s. Mountain biking became more popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Records show Rick Edwards, the city’s former park and rec director, sought Hubert Van Peenen’s opinion on allowing mountain bikes in Van Peenen Park.
“Barbara and I wanted to keep the land as close to natural as was possible,” Van Peenen wrote to Edwards. “If even hiking and cross-country skiing have already laced the habitat with far more trails than it originally had, mountain biking can only make it worse.”
Van Peenen went on to explain he had no objection to the bikes “if they can be kept from damaging a small and fragile environment,” adding that he didn’t think Decorah’s park commission could control overuse. Van Peenen acknowledged the land was no longer his, but stated he thought the safety of Van Peenen Park was at its limit.
Sharing the trail
Mountain bikers began riding on the Van Peenen Park trails, and usage by cyclists has increased several fold over the past decade.
“We recognize and give credit for all the good mountain bikers have done for the community — they are an economic asset and have put in a lot of work on the trails and in the community,” Kellogg said, noting the saddle club also raises funds for a number of charities.
But, as both groups continued using the Van Peenen Park trails, questions of safety emerged. At several park and rec board meetings in recent years, members of the public have said they believe the mountain biking trails aren’t safe for horseback riders to use, and several board members have moved to stop horseback riding on all the trails. More recently, the board voted to remove horseback riding from the city web page which lists permitted uses in Van Peenen Park.
Earlier this year, saddle club member Danielle Dotzenrod reached out to the park and rec board, asking that horse back riding be returned to the website as well as any park literature — a request she feels reignited friction between the saddle club and the Decorah Human Powered Trails mountain biking group.
Nick Pearch, president of DHPT, addressed the park and rec board at its September meeting, saying the DHPT didn’t feel safe sharing the trails with horse riders for a few main reasons.
“Mountain bikers, families and dogs don’t feel safe giving the right of way to horses — proper trail etiquette is that both hikers and bikers give way to horses, but that means they need to get off on the side of the trails to make room for the horse,” said Pearch. “There was an incident recently where a horse was screaming through the prairie with no rider. Sustainability of the trail also includes safety, when a thousand-pound animal leaves large craters in the trails, and in turn, runners and hikers twist ankles and bikers fall in. Large potholes are made and water runs down the trail, and we try to throw dirt in the holes, but it’s never the same.”
Pearch also claimed horse droppings on the trails are problematic for hikers and bikers. Kellogg said she and her husband have been vigilant in routinely removing horse droppings after major events like the saddle club’s annual Memorial Day trail ride, as well as when walking the trail at their own leisure.
Dotzenrod indicated she doesn’t feel the issue should pit horse riders against mountain bikers, saying both can use the trails together.
“It would be so simple if three things on the trails were acknowledged by everyone who uses them — courtesy, communication, and care,” she said.
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