International Trails Summit Recap
It’s Earth Day, and I find myself struggling with how to recap last week’s International Trails Summit (ITS). Let’s be honest. Many who work in trails and conservation are deeply concerned right now. Environmental regulations are being rolled back. Funds for trail projects have been rescinded. Public lands are at risk in a multitude of ways, and those who manage them suddenly have fewer resources and fewer colleagues. Even AmeriCorps volunteers have been sent home.
It’s a challenging time to be doing this work. I’ve been participating in ITS for 15 years, and this is the first one in which I didn’t meet a single federal employee. This boggles my mind as I think about the USDA Forest Service, stewards of the nation’s largest trail system, and how their trails staff weren’t able to share in the learning last week.
Clearly this was not a typical ITS. But nevertheless, hundreds of us gathered to do the work of advancing the trails industry. Here are some of my personal takeaways:
Keynote speaker James Edward Mills gave us the history lesson we should have received a long time ago, sharing how Black pioneers in cycling, caving, climbing, and civil rights have contributed to outdoor recreation and our shared enjoyment of the outdoors. Of course, many of these same people were denied entry to public lands and trail-serving businesses well into the twentieth century. In the current moment, Mills said, we have to decide where we want to go. “Everyone in this room is in the business of getting people where they want to go,” he said. We’re gifted in the way of routing, planning, and visioning. These skills are transferable. Let’s use them!
Trail advocates are still championing trails. We heard from both Marianne Fowler of the Rails to Trails Conservancy and Chris Perkins of the Outdoor Recreation Roundtable (ORR) about a bipartisan push to seek full Recreation Trails Program (RTP) funding through the RTP Full Funding Act of 2025. Chris also spoke about efforts to reauthorize the Great American Outdoors Act (again, bipartisan) and ORR’s work on a roadmap for rural economic development. Mike Passo of American Trails and Aaryn Kay of Professional TrailBuilders Association (co-hosts of ITS) shared an update on the Trail Skills Project (in Mike’s words: an opportunity to formalize the trails industry). Here’s my personal Trail Skills profile. So the work continues, despite the obstacles we’re facing.
The Trail Town approach still resonates. On a personal note, I’m delighted every time I meet someone who says, “I have your book.” I met a few of those people last week and was buoyed by their comments (you can get a copy here). I love that the Trail Town approach remains relevant and it continues to evolve. There were two sessions this go round: Julie Judkins and I led a “Why We’re Not Talking About Economic Impact” session. We acknowledged the enormous economic impact of trails, but wanted to create a space to explore the many other benefits of trails and how to center community needs and interests in trail planning. We shared a number of resiliency strategies, among them the Trail Town approach. We also shared our Trail Towns & Gateway Communities report findings and what we learned from the managers of the existing programs. We’re proud of this research and invite you to view it here. The other ITS Trail Town session was led by Parks & Trails New York (PTNY). Dylan Carey and Erica Schneider of PTNY offered an informative session and reminded us how important it is to develop local capacity via regional Trail Town initiatives. (In my view, this is where some programs falter.)
Nothing beats getting outside. Julie and I have been working over the last couple of years to convene Trail Town and Gateway Community program managers. We saw an opportunity to do so in person during ITS, and organized a visit to the Ice Age National Scenic Trail, which operates its own community program. Big thanks to Amy Lord of the Ice Age Trail Alliance for taking us on a hike near the town of Verona. It was fun to have a few of the Trail Town managers connecting in person on a blue sky day! We hiked through a prairie, and I don’t think a single one of us regretted a couple of hours out on the trail. And, as it often goes with off-sites, the best connections happened in that time and space.
Chris Perkins mentioned that the ORR and others who are part of the $1.2 Trillion outdoor industry are looking for certainty in tariff policies, around the the value of public lands, and in terms of federal staffing strategies. There’s no question that certainty would help small businesses and gateway communities navigate the current climate, but the reality is we are living in uncertain times. This brings me to a W.E.B. Du Bois quote that James Edward Mills shared in his keynote. Du Bois had wondered, “Why do not those who are scarred in the world’s battle and hurt by its hardness travel to these places of beauty and drown themselves in the utter joy of life?”
Du Bois was asking in the context of race relations, trauma, and the Jim Crow South. He recognized that the outdoors – places like the Grand Canyon and Acadia National Park – could salve the pain and injustice. In a different time and context (as we learned just five years ago with Covid), can’t trails do the same right now?
It’s true: we are hurt by the hardness of the world, just like those who preceded us. Let us find time to get outside and drown ourselves “in the utter joy of life.”
Want more from ITS?
Here’s my photo album and here’s a recap from the 2023 summit in Reno. I still refer back to the recap fairly often because I learned so much from the speakers that year. I hope you’ll take the time to check it out.
Loved seeing your photos! You look so happy!!