By Alison Rein
Special to the Turnagain Times
On an average winter day in the Turnagain Arm area, you’ll find kids practicing for a ski race on groomed trails, families towing children in sleds along the bike path, and snowshoers exploring the woods on Winner Creek Trail. A summer day sees mountain bikers on the Resurrection Pass trail, runners slogging over Crow Pass, and OHVs on trails made from old logging roads in Indian. Trails are used everyday throughout this area, helping us to pursue our passions for recreating outdoors.
The 2009 Statewide Trails Conference taps into our local trail obsession offering topics of interest for the casual walker to the seasoned trails professional. The conference will be held April 22-25 at the Hilton in Anchorage as one component of the annual Alaska Recreation and Park Association (ARPA) Conference.
The Statewide Trails Conference draws participants from many of the groups you’d expect—land management agencies, trail construction crews, citizen user groups, and non-profit conservation outfits—but there is plenty to interest the recreational trail user as well. This year’s line-up offers sessions with topics as glamorous as the Iditarod Trail, with keynote speaker Lance Mackey; as critical as human-wildlife interactions - Rick Sinnott will discuss some consequences of trails and Anchorage’s bear populations; and as nuts-and-bolts as managing trail crews (a panel of experts swaps advice.) Other highlights include an intro to Sustainable Trail Design, a field-based class on Rigging for Trail Work, and a talk from an OHV activist who will remind us that yes, it’s possible for sledheads and skinny-skiers to just get along.
If you are interested in being a part of growing and conserving Alaska’s vast trail network, check out the conference website at www.alaskarpa.org. You’ll find details on registration, schedule and accommodations, as well as links to information from the many partnering organizations including Alaska Trails, the National Park Service Rivers, Trails, and Conservation Association, BLM, Forest Service, Alaska State Parks, and many more. (There’s also information on the other ARPA conference tracks, like Aquatics, Parks Maintenance, and a Bicycle Summit.)
Early registration is going on from now through March 30.