Today, having nothing better to do, I tried to understand the setup of the Southwest Nordic Ski Club trails off the Cañada Bonita Trail. I'm pretty sure that I walked every one of them. My GPS said the final tally was 5.5 miles.
The ski trails are confusing because from the most direct route to Cañada Bonita meadow, the upper trail, the letter assigned to the trail segment changes, even though it's the same trail, when it's accessed from the old Quemazon Road, e.g., E from the upper route becomes P when accessed from the lower road. The letters are on blue diamonds tacked onto trees.
Basically, all the ski trails going downhill from the most direct route to the meadow intersect the Quemazon Road (aka Guaje Canyon Trail 282, aka Cañada Bonita Trail). The ski trails going uphill from the most direct route to the meadow are loops that seem designed to give the skier as much downhill as possible in limited space. For example, ski trail L, which starts from Cañada Bonita meadow has 6 switchbacks. Each switchback has its own number on a blue diamond tacked to a tree.
Some of the ski trails have names in addition to letters of the alphabet - TJ's Dogleg, Dave's Dogleg, and one named after a Tom but I can't remember the name - maybe something like Tom's Mad Downhill or Mad Tom's Downhill...
Well, now that I've done this, I don't have to ever do it again. The trails are exasperating for hikers in their meanderings but things of wonder for Nordic skiers as they whip through the forest!
Saw outside the senior center the woman who volunteered on rebuilding the Knapp Trail. She says they went 1 1/3 mile and other volunteers went ahead with chainsaws. The original Knapp Trail from Quemazon Canyon up to the Quemazon Trail was only .8 mile (no wonder it was so steep) so I'm not sure what to make of the 1 1/3 miles. Maybe they will make it longer but gentler? Maybe I didn't understand exactly where the 1 1/3 miles began. The forest service drove them to the Los Alamos Reservoir - the 1 1/3 miles could have started from there? There was probably plenty of deadfall in Los Alamos Canyon to deal with before they even approached the bottom of the Knapp Trail. She seemed in a hurry so I didn't press her for details.
Almost forgot - most peculiar - near the start of the Cañada Bonita trailhead, right after the locked gate, on the left side, there is an portable automatic traffic counter attached to a tree. I never saw that before. At first I thought it was a camera but it says portable automatic traffic counter on the back (or something like that).