OSI Trails Blog: BPL Training

Steve Kasacek | OSI Director of Trail Development & Education

In May OSI provided the Bureau of Parks and Lands (BPL) Lands staff with training in sustainable trail basics. OSI was thrilled to provide this workshop. Personally, I am beyond excited to share new thinking and approaches to trails with land managers. As a born and raised New Englander, our legacy of recreation does not always fit with what we know about sustainability. Since land managers are continually tasked with more to do and less to do it with, it is always refreshing to see an agency take a hard look at their trails with new knowledge.

OSI provided our Foundational Trail Theory and Fundamentals of Sustainable Trails curriculum, and helped lead a short field walk focused on inventory and assessment. While many of the Lands staff were boots-on-the-ground types who needed technical skills, the workshop also had managers, supervisors, and directors. No matter who you are, having a firm understanding of user experience goals, drainage structures, and basic maintenance is important.

OSI was excited to partner with Erik Brooks from Camden Hills State Park, where some of the training occurred. While a few hours was hardly enough time to cover anything no matter the area of expertise, most of the Lands staff walked away with a new outlook on trails.

The heart of OSI’s work is our focus on what makes trails sustainable and our hunger for finding out why trails fail. This approach gets at the root of many of our modern trail issues. Instead of just fixing everything as is and where it is, we target creative solutions that ensure the right trail, for the right people, is in the right place. I encouraged the Lands staff to think broader, engage in more local partnership, and continue to educate themselves on trail best practices. These are things I have repeatedly seen lead to successful trails and the communities that support them.

I’m always proud of our work, whether it is getting someone on a trail for the first time or helping a land manager solve a problem. But my real passion is sharing new thinking around trails and encouraging our shared community to reflect more deeply on the simple dirt paths we all love.