Forest Trails Alliance

11/17/2025

LEGACY TRAIL BUILDING
Is not a product you will often find from a standard agency created trail project built by a contractor.
Legacy trails, start with creativity and passion, and a desire to contribute. They are possible to manifest when common people come together with a dream and a desire for something better.
The absolutely crazy part is all these photos below reflect examples of what is possible when a regional trail group is given the opportunity to develop a project from concept to completion.

A Trail Project loses its continuity and graceful outcome when it is segmented and parceled out like meat on a butchers block to the lowest bidder.
The other remarkable aspect. Is that all these features were built for a fraction of the cost of what basic drab standard contracting produces.

I am not at all, putting down or saying that there is no need for professional trail contractors. Trail contractors like myself suffer the most. There is no security in our livelihood, spending lots of our income and time pursuing false leads and bidding on elusive projects. There is no community involvement, awareness, or appreciation for the hard work we contribute. As individual contractors, we are absolutely underwater with a huge amount of personal liability and commercial expenses, that sucks the passion from our bones.
The sad truth, is that 80% of the capital invested regionally on pedestrian development goes to non-trail related corporations.

So while most Community citizens enjoy stable and reliable employees working through a regional public works department to facilitate vehicle road construction and maintenance for a few dollars a year in taxes, Trail contractors must follow a path of financial struggle and challenge just to feed their families.

We need to be smarter than the system that we currently employ to create the outcomes we desire

Who is understanding the circumstance I am articulating and is inspired to do something different.

While Forest trails alliance, is a great example of a regional nonprofit Trail construction organization, (pedestrian public Works) with $100,000 of specialized equipment, shared resources, and regional network of volunteers and specialist, it lacks the support of an organized community of land managers, businesses and user groups. This task, we think, can be best facilitated by a regional stewardship organization that can also develop regional maintenance support, support planning, development, and capital funding and ensure the needed advocacy and promotion of a local trails vision and plan.

If you look at IMBA, I think they have a good model. It is a nonprofit for mountain bike trail development that supports regional chapters with advocacy, planning and developmental support. That also has a not for profit LLC, Trail solutions, that facilitates construction when projects are successfully developed

We need something like that regionally that focuses not just on mountain bikes, and not just on recreation

Curious to your thoughts

08/23/2024

https://www.facebook.com/groups/153109886330406/permalink/925767535731300/

Send a message to learn more

08/11/2024

Inspired to be featured in this article

“Money has gotten us greed. Money has gotten us famine. Money has gotten us global pollution and warming. Money is a handy tool, but it's not a healthy obsession. The things that bring us the most meaning is helping, is being a gift, is showing up and being valued, making a difference, really feel...

03/08/2024

Please help share this post to your favorite groups and pages and especially to your friends who are amazing positive advocates

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=386020507469227&id=100081838428515&mibextid=cr9u03

Village Lovers filled with kindness and gratitude, this sweet emerging institution is seeking advocates and mentors willing to hold our shared interests
The COUNCIL OF BENEVOLENCE is a leadership group with a focus on developing and sustaining beautiful collaborations, environments of acknowledgment and encouragement for positive change around our need for a healthy and vital community and the pedestrian trails and infrastructure to support it
Teachers, realtors, councilors, mediators, writers, positive change agents and others willing to help create positive engagement, this is your calling
This Friday will be our first facilitated session to explore powerful life changing efforts to manifest positive change together
Please PM me for details 🙏❤️

01/16/2024

TRAIL BUILDING SEASON in California ideally starts when the soils have their thirst quenched with a deep saturation of water. Dirt devoid of 7-15% moisture does not compact or stabilize well often resulting in dangerous building conditions unless you are building full bench which requires all soil to be cast downhill of the trail. This contributes to lots of impact to adjacent plants, erosion and sediment in our watersheds. So with that said I hold gratitude for this craft and especially the wonderful people who I work with. Ian and Lobo are dominating with vegetation prep ahead of more rain and can make a guy feel old with the excitement and vitality. 🙏❤️

01/10/2024

TRAIL BUILDING has been a huge gift in my life both in its unique crafting challenges in nature as well as the amazing experiences I have had working with people and contributing to our collective needs. I yearn for this beautiful craft to be held more sweetly than just a way to make money and in a way that empowers villages with sustained capacity and collective engagement. The forth largest economy in the world does not reflect our capacity to support vital and life-giving human mobility in the form of basic connective Trail networks. Our communities are fragmented and under resourced and our children are left navigating glass filled shoulders adjacent speeding distracted drivers. I have gratitude for efforts by isolated Mountain bike groups to develop engaging trails but often this is at the cost if diminished representation of or universal needs and sustains conflicts with other users in a competition for limited resources. Excited to explore who else might be inspired with the notion of what might be possible if we come together and invest in networked institutions of service that bring us together around our collective capacity? 🙏❤️

12/24/2023

HUMAN MOBILITY has been sold out the back door in favor of a world dominated by cars and petroleum. Even my lovely rural community is gridlocked on sunny days where we should be vital and full of life. 500miles of asphalt roads costing $2-3 million p mile with 60% of the dedicated easements fallow and unused, when just a dirt path would be so amazing. Let’s take back our sense of capacity to create meaningful infrastructure together. Little moments like yesterday bring me hope. Let’s do more of this.

12/23/2023

I absolutely love the vision of our sweet village transformed by creatives working together. Our walking/riding infrastructure  is a canvas for us to express our collective capacity.

12/18/2023

Our builders guild hosted a community trail build at Ponerosa Pines Park. Healthy Mobility is so important for our community. We reconstructed the trail that was there, so that it was 5% rather than 15%. Several residents had fallen on the old steep trail recently. Our team of experienced volunteers and half a dozen new folks that signed up Had a great time. Given the millions of dollars our local municipalities and agencies spend on contracting, it makes sense to develop our own community resources through training and equipment investment. It will be our goal to support neighborhoods and their development of paths and trails.

12/10/2023

COMMUNITY TRAIL BUILDING is amazing to experience. Working together as a team crafting such a durable, long lasting feature is inspiring. So important that we begin to transform our community into a place to be healthy and active outside of vehicles. The best part was the appreciation from the folks and value this brought to this neighborhood. This Friday after work will be meeting at our trail center to build the two forms for the stone arch bridges and to enjoy music, brew and friendship. Stop by. 🖖

11/26/2023

Ferrocement Armature reaches for the sky as we complete the top of this 18’dia, 14’tall lancet dome with a 8’ ocular or opening to the sky. The thin wall ferrocement shells are super strong. Without the need for any forming, the insulated wood framed space can be completely separated from the surrounding soil. This provides naturally lit spaces all around the building protecting it from moisture, intense heat and fire.