The American Hiking Society website. Creators of National Trails Day.
Today, the first Saturday in June, is National Trails Day, a day sponsored and promoted by the American Hiking Society to help promote the creation, upkeep and use of America’s 200,000+ miles of public-access trails. Created in 1993, the day has its roots in 1987′s report from the President’s Commission on Americans Outdoors, which endorsed the creation of a network of trails that would allow every single person access to a trial within 15 minutes of walking out their front door.
From 1990′s TRAILS FOR ALL AMERICANS report (National Trails Agenda Project)
What would it take for all Americans to be able to go out their front doors and within fifteen minutes be on trails that wind through their cities, towns or villages and bring them back without retracting their steps? Along the way they could pass shops and restaurants, go to work, school or a park, visit an historic site or the zoo, and experience the great outdoors without a car or bus. If they were to follow the right path, the trail could take them into the countryside or possibly link up with another trail that would lead them into the deepest wilderness or to the highest mountain or across the widest prairie. They could travel across America on trails that connect one community to another and stretch from coast to coast, and from border to border.
It’s a tall order, but one that is remarkably within reach. Though I love seeing continued creation of new greenways, bikepaths, et. al. that serve to enrich a community and get its citizens outdoors, one of the things I’ve come to realize only recently is that there is more available to us in terms of trails and walkable, bikeable, runnable, hikeable paths than we’re typically aware of. I’ve lived in over 36 different, wildly diverse places, including dense cities, and in each of them there has always been accessible trails. Often though, I didn’t know about them for a long while after taking up residence!
Case in point: It’s taken me almost two years in my current location to discover decent public access trails. I’ve done online research and asked oodles of people, in person, for trail recommendations. I’ve even visited running and outdoor stores and come up empty-handed! Only now – again, two years into the search – have I started to discover what is turning out to be a wealth of trails and public-use lands available in my area, but nobody knew about them!
One of the biggest stumbling blocks in promoting the creation and use of public trails is spreading the word. If nobody knows about them, nobody will use them. There is a beautiful bike path less than a mile from my front door, but until a new addition was created, I’d never even heard of it. Never seen signs for it. Never found out anything about it online.
On National Trails Day, get out and help to maintain some of those trails if you can, but most of all, use them and tell others about them. As with many things, education is the key.
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Additional Resources: Check out American Trials and the American Trails Facebook page.
