March 5 Trail Report

While we often have grounds to quibble with the accuracy of our daily weather forecasts and their predictions for precipitation, yesterday certainly would NOT provide pretext to support our arguments! Rainfall predictions were almost spot on yesterday as we did indeed record upwards of half an inch of rain that fell in Boise! And, while the Lower Foothills does appear to have received most of this precipitation in the form of rain, the picture as the sun begins to rise shows that the mid and upper elevations of the Foothills are layered in a blanket of snow. What a difference a day makes!

The unfortunate news for those that couldn’t make it out for their longer runs, rides, or hikes yesterday is that our trail conditions are certainly set back at least a couple of days when it comes to muddy trail conditions. Our recommendation for today is to please consider avoiding the Ridge to Rivers system trails altogether to allow for that initial drying process to begin. Due to the sheer volume of rain that we received yesterday, even “all-weather” trails will likely be quite spongey today until that water can drain through the upper layers of soil. The remaining trails throughout the system are certainly going to be completely saturated and sloppy today as well.

In the meantime, take a day to continue exploring the wonderful resource that is our Boise Greenbelt! We really are blessed to have such a fantastic recreational resource at all points during the year, but we are especially grateful to have this as an option when the weather chases us out of the Foothills as it has today. You can find a link to the City’s Greenbelt webpage with maps and additional information here: https://www.cityofboise.org/departments/parks-and-recreation/parks/boise-greenbelt/.

Because the weather does appear to be warming and daylight hours are increasing each day, we would anticipate that wet trail conditions should continue to dry relatively quickly beginning today. Please stay tuned in as we update the Ridge to Rivers Interactive Map at least at the beginning of each morning.

Wet Weather and Winter Trail Use: https://www.ridgetorivers.org/trail-guide/trail-etiquette/wet-weather-and-winter-trail-use/

Ridge to Rivers Interactive Map: https://www.ridgetorivers.org/trails/interactive-map/