Sadly, the photo at the top of this page is one the like of which we've seen too many times before in Marin County, CA. Fences pulled down, signs torn out of the ground and cast aside, tree roots exposed and vegetation crushed to death by mountain bike traffic. Schlotterbeck's story is no less familiar. Hiking in Marin since 1964, I and fellow hikers never heard anything like it until mountain bikers descended on our mountain like a plague of carnivorous locusts. The infamous "New Paradigm Trail" was among the first of countless trails illegally built by chainsaw-wielding mountain bikers who took pride in cutting down trees and ripping up the landscape with picks and shovels. The experience of "recharging spiritual batteries" became a thing of the past for hikers who found serene trails transformed into raceways for testosterone-poisoned bikers in search of thrills, chills and spills. The county's so-called "Hiker-Biker War" ended with a whimper when bikers realized they didn't have to defend their actions. Eventually, they realized they could do as they pleased with little risk of being caught. The photo above says it all. We shouldn't worry about loving our parks to death. We're going to see them beaten and bled to death long before that.