THIS IS A PUBLIC TRAIL, SOLDIER. BUTT OUT!

Joyce Cheney and her dog, Poodles

Joyce Cheney, seen here with her dog, Poodles, loves to hike.

She especially enjoys the Mount Manitou Incline and Barr Trail in Manitou Springs, as well as Section 16 and Waldo Canyon.

Of course, those are four of the most popular trails in the region.

Cheney wishes they got a little less use from members of the military who regularly go on training runs on those same trails.

Cheney said she regularly sees soldiers from Fort Carson and Air Force Academy cadets on the trails.

It bugs her.

Why, she asks, can’t they train on the thousands of acres set aside for them?

“I wish they’d train somewhere else,” she said. “These are public recreational trails. They have thousands of acres of base land available to train on.”

Isn’t it bad enough we have to share them with every Texan who wanders into town? (OK, the Texan crack is my smart-mouth remark, not Cheney’s words.)

And something else really bugs her. Some of the military smoke. And, she said, they drop cigarette butts on the trails. Even lit butts!

Dropping cigarette butts on trails is not cool. Doesn’t matter who you are, military or civilian. It’s like letting your dog drop something on the trail. It’s just wrong.

And lit butts are dangerous. Stupid and dangerous.

I was shocked at the idea soldiers and cadets are puffing and dropping butts after a 10-mile jaunt up Barr Trail. So I called a trails expert, Susan Davies, executive director of the Trails and Open Space Coalition, to see how bad the situation really is.

She said it’s true our friends in the military, when they aren’t risking their lives for us halfway around the world, do like to run our trails.

“But so what?” Davies said.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Davies added that the military doesn’t just run the trails, they volunteer regularly to perform trail building and maintenance.

Here’s proof: Air Force cadets with picks and shovels building trail in Red Rock Canyon Open Space and collecting trash along the Pikes Peak Greenway downtown Colorado Springs.

Air Force Academy cadets perform trail maintenance in Red Rock Canyon Open Space on April 2, 2011. Photo courtesy the Trails and Open Space Coalition

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Air Force Academy cadets perform trail maintenance in Red Rock Canyon on April 2, 2011. Photo courtesy the Trails and Open Space Coalition.

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THIS IS A PUBLIC TRAIL, SOLDIER. BUTT OUT! is a post from: Side Streets