Durango Trails Launches New Education Campaign on Earth Day

Hi, I’m Beth Drum with Alpine Bank. At Alpine Bank, we value the services that our nonprofit community offers. We hope you enjoy meeting some of these change-makers as part of the Alpine Bank series, Community Matters.

You can thank the pandemic for the increase in hikers and bikers on your favorite trails, and apparently some of them don’t know or have forgotten how to share the trails with others. That’s why Durango Trails will launch a new education campaign called “Durango Loves Trails” on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22nd.

There are a lot of new trail users out because of COVID. Many more people are recreating on area trails, so we thought it was a great opportunity to educate current or existing and new trail users, sort of about the rules of the trails.

Earth Day events will feature a drive-thru fundraiser and 30th anniversary celebration redo with the debut of a new Ska Beer called Trail Crew Brew. Walk, ride, or drive by Ska Brewing from noon to six on Earth Day to make a donation and become a Durango Trails member. Donations of $25 or more qualify for a 15% discount on six-pack purchases of the limited edition Trail Crew Brew. If you make a donation of a hundred dollars or more, you’ll receive a 32-ounce growler. Durango Trails was formed as trails 2000 in 1990 to collaborate with private land owners and local state and federal agencies to plan and build 200 miles of trails in the Durango area by the year 2000. The organization’s volunteers met their goal and last year, the nonprofit celebrated its 30th anniversary with a name change to Durango Trails. Today Durango Trails maintains and improves more than 300 miles of trails within 30 minutes of the city. As users returned to the trails this spring, Durango Trails also will redouble education efforts with its Durango Loves Trails campaign. That means yield the trail to others, depending on your means of travel. Bike riders yield to hikers and both yield to horses. Announce yourself when you’re ready to overtake another user. Acknowledge other trail users with a friendly greeting and pack out what you pack in, including animal waste.

But as more trail users are out there with more dogs, it just presents more opportunity for conflict with dogs maybe out of sight, you know, potentially running into or being run into by other users, equestrian or mountain bikers or even hikers, and also the campaign espouses a “leave no trace” sort of trail etiquette, so that means packing out what you bring with you and that includes packing out dog waste. More dogs, you know, is more dog waste on the trails, and especially if they’re off leash, owners don’t always see where they do their business and that can present, you know, an uncomfortable trail situation for other users, so we ask everybody to lease their dogs, clean up after themselves and after their dogs, and make it a better, a better resource for everyone.

To learn more about the 30th anniversary redo celebration or the Durango Loves Trails campaign, visit DurangoTrails.org. Thanks for watching this edition of the Local News Network, serving the greater Durango, Pagosa Springs, Cortez, Telluride, and Farmington communities. I’m Wendy Graham Settle.

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