Repairs to flood-damaged sections of the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System are expected to be complete by the end of the summer.

“We’re just about fully recovered from the floods,” said Jeffrey Lusk, director of the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreational System. “We’ve got all of our trails open—not all repaired, but all open.”

May’s flooding took 212 miles of trail offline, Lusk reported. “Right now, we’ve got about 100 miles completely repaired and we’ve got another 100 miles that are passable but not yet in pre-flood condition,” he explained.

“This is the first time we’ve had massive slides throughout our trail system,” he noted. “We had stretches of bank as long as 100 feet turn loose and collapse on the trail.

Sections of the Pinnacle Creek Trail in Wyoming County completely vanished, he pointed out. “There were places where there was no distinguishable road left after high water,” he said.

He expects it to take two or three months to get the system back in pre-flood condition.

Cleanup and repair have cost $150,000 to date. Lusk expects that figure to reach $250,000-300,000 by the time the job is complete. “It seems like the more we do, the more there is to be done,” he observed.

The repairs focus on improved drainage and runoff. “We don’t ever want this to happen again,” stated Lusk. “We don’t want to be in a situation where we have 200 miles of damage.

“We’re using larger drain pipes, more rolling dips,” he continued. “”We’re using things to mitigate this in the future.”

The flood has put development projects for 2009 on hold.

“We haven’t worked on any of our projects since the flood,” Lusk remarked.

Some of those projects  include a trail connector at Twin Falls State Park, a connector for the Indian Ridge and Pinnacle Creek trail, and the opening of the Mercer County trail.

“We hope, by the end of summer, to free up at least one of our crews to work on those projects,” said Lusk.

Rider response to the disaster has been supportive, he reported.

“Our riders have been super,” he said. “They’ve offered to come in and do flood clean up and help repair trails. A lot of them volunteered to come to the town of Gilbert and help out there. They’ve really stepped up to the plate.

“They can still see the damage,” he commented, “but they understand and we’ve had no complaints.”