Re: A well-marked trail

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Just idle musings, but it would seem to me that having a well-marked trail
is in part a safety issue.  The less likelihood you have of riders haring
off into unknown territory, the less likelihood you have to call out the
Marines to go find them and hope they haven't gone off a cliff in the
meantime.

It also seems a little more fair to mark a trail reasonably well and to
level the playing field for those that already know the trail, versus those
that are there to race but aren't familiar with that invisible trail that
you have to be telepathic to find.  I realize "level playing field" are
fighting words to some, but that's IMO.

And it seems that, while putting up trail markings is hard work, it's
probably easier on a RM than having to sort out the hysterics of who gets to
be counted as top ten, who only gets a completion because they cut trail
they may or may not have known about and who gets fingers pointed at them
for not doing loops that you need a bloodhound to find.  Speaking only for
me, I'd rather be out on a trail putting up ribbon rather than be in the
midst of a lynch mob.

I don't need to have my "hand held" going down a marked trail, but it seems
to me I'd rather have challenges thrown at me by the trail itself, not in
having to find the damn thing in the first place.

JMO.

Susan G