The Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation recently awarded $1.68 million to 14 different projects — and a network of mountain bike/hiking trails northwest of Cody is one of the biggest beneficiaries.

Park County Pedalers, a nonprofit cycling group, received $300,000 through the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Collaborative Grant Program to improve the Outlaw Trails area. The system is just a few miles outside Cody, north of Newton Lakes and within a special recreation management area.

“It’s already a great resource now,” said Park County Pedalers President John Gallagher, “so it’s just going to get better.”

The rec office says the upcoming project will “revitalize a network of social trails and build new trails” — repairing some problematic spots and adding trails in sun-soaked areas to improve wintertime access.

Most of the existing trails started out very informally or as game trails, and “cows are not engineers,” Gallagher said. With the recent funding, however, the group will be able to hire professional contractors who are well-versed on building top-notch routes. Gallagher said they’re currently writing requests for proposals and organizing site visits for potential crews.

The cycling group is contributing its own cash to match some of the state dollars and contributing labor. They’re also seeking other sources of funding to “build as much as we possibly can,” Gallagher said. 

“Originally this was almost a million dollar project, and it keeps getting whittled down,” he said, adding, “We’ve got more to build than we can get done, so we’re prioritizing what it is we want done.”

Depending on how things go, Gallagher said contractors could potentially start this fall or winter, though he expects most of the work to be done next summer.

In the meantime, the group hasn’t just been sitting and waiting for the paid professionals to show up. Using volunteer labor, “we’ve already built a few miles out there this year,” Gallagher said, including 500 feet he completed over the weekend.

Big Horn County projects

The Outlaw Trails was one of three local spots to receive funding from the state recreation office, as the Bureau of Land Management’s Cody Field Office secured grants for two projects in northern Big Horn County.

One will boost access to the Bighorn River. As a part of the effort to create a Bighorn River Blueway Trail, the BLM will use the $150,000 awarded by the state to develop at least one river access point between Greybull and Lovell. That will include building an access road, a gravel parking area and boat ramp, alongside informational kiosks.

The local BLM office also received $100,000 to improve the Darnell Hills open off-highway vehicle area, which is about 10 miles northeast of Lovell.

The badlands area has very few trees and during the summer months, “the area can be very hot,” according to a project summary. Using the recreation office funding, the BLM will install shade shelters at five designated campsites.

Tourism funding

The grant program is funded by the Wyoming Office of Tourism. The stated aim is to fortify Wyoming’s outdoor recreation and tourism economy by boosting ideas put forward by outdoor recreation collaboratives around the state.

Park County’s collaborative sponsored the Outlaw Trails grant application while the Bighorn Basin collaborative sponsored the Bighorn River and Darnell Hills grants — along with another proposal that netted the City of Worland $100,000 to develop a trails complex at Riverside Park.

The other grants included in August’s announcements are spread around the state, from improving the Upton Gun Range to making the Hell’s Half Acre badlands north of Casper more accessible to the public.

For more information about Wyoming’s outdoor recreation collaboratives, visit tinyurl.com/5n6u2eda.