Customized Trail Design Workshop (Pre-Conference)

Dates: Sunday, March 17 and Monday, March 18 (8 am - 5 pm)
Cost: $380
Instructor: Troy Scott Parker, Natureshape LLC (PTBA Member)

NOTE: This workshop is also offered as a post-conference workshop

workshop description

This hands-on, small group workshop is the next best thing to a custom trail design workshop on your own site. We'll be in the field for all of both days; NO classroom time. Emphasis is on: 

• identifying problems and generating context-appropriate solutions

• optimizing trails and sites

• learning to work with trails as seasoned trail experts do, i.e., intuitively, structurally, and aesthetically at the same time

• shaping lively, wonderful, fun, and sustainable natural surface trails for any type of use you want to work with (hike, bike, horse, accessible, OHV, etc.)

The workshop is based on trailshaping and 30+ years of thought. Trailshaping is a self-structuring framework for expert-level decision making that makes trail experts smarter and that novices can quickly learn and use. It leads us to look for what matters most with any trail, for what most potently shapes it within its own unique context. It integrates intuition (our sense of what’s “just right” and what isn’t), logic, feelings, the site, aesthetics, nature, the user’s trail experience, user psychology, all physical aspects (soils, water, materials, drainage, stability, etc.), impacts of trail use, trail sustainability, trail structures, and all trail planning, design, construction, maintenance, and management issues within a context-appropriate framework. The framework grows itself, almost effortlessly, from the specific forces that most potently shape all trails. With it, we can understand, explain (in natural language), predict, and assess any existing or proposed trail.

Note: In addition to field days, you’re invited to meet with the instructor indoors during the evening before the first day and the evenings of both field days to discuss your own projects and interests in greater depth.

What to bring

Bring your hiking boots, imagination, an open mind, and photos and topo maps of your trail challenges, opportunities, and successes. 

About the Instructor

Troy Scott Parker, Principal of Natureshape LLC, a trail planning and education firm and PTBA member; developer of trailshaping; and author of Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails

Workshop includes a copy of the instructor’s book, Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails. (If you’ve already read it, this workshop goes much further.) 

Final Trail Construction Alignment- Getting The Best Trail Possible

Dates: Monday, March 18
Cost: $200 (lunch included)
Instructors: Greg Mazu, Singletrack Trails (PTBA Member), Scott Linnenburger, Kay-Linn Enterprises (PTBA Member)

workshop DESCRIPTION

Up, Down, Left, Right?! Can you read a clinometer in your sleep? Has your 5% flagged trail corridor turned into a jumbled mess of a trail during construction? Has your crew, a group of volunteers, or a contractor told you “... but that’s what you designed?!”  

Often, the hardest part of trail design happens right before construction.  “Put the trail here...No. 6 inches to the right...Wait. Above or below that rock/tree? Just put it where it’s easiest to construct! What difference does it make? While there aren’t hard and fast rules, every micro-alignment choice affects the construction, maintenance, and user experience/management on a trail.

 This workshop will walk attendees through decision points along that final part of the trail design process.  We will work with established and approved corridor flag lines, discussing the elements of making an optimized final trail location that minimizes construction impacts and future maintenance/management issues and maximizes a durable, high quality trail experience.  The field-based discussions/exercises will differentiate how final flagging for volunteer, youth corps, agency crew, and private contractor types of construction, as well as the types of tools/machines and experience available, can affect alignment and construction decisions. Finally, we will bring the process back to the beginning, where the development of quality specifications, construction process and field notes, and narrative experiential descriptions can assist in framing the final alignment questions and reducing confusion for those building the trail that has been designed.

Learning Objectives

1. Process the potential alignment options presented within a designed and flagged trail corridor.

2. Understand the concepts and decision points of final flagging for construction in differing labor and machinery scenarios to minimize impacts and maximize trail quality.

3. Develop an understanding for utilizing specifications, construction notes, and desired experiences to reduce the number of potential alignment options.

WORKSHOP AGENDA

Field-Based Seminar: We will work with existing, flagged trail corridors to develop final construction alignments that account for long-term drainage, trail durability, use conflict minimization, and a high-quality user experience under differing scenarios for construction and use capacity. The field work will be facilitated by the instructors and implemented in small groups. Each small group will present their final alignment for critique by the seminar participants near the end of the day. Groups will be provided with ribbon and pin flagging for the field exercises.

WHAT TO BRING

1. Intermediate or higher levels of trail design knowledge and experience. Clinometer use, corridor flagging, and the basics of rolling contour trail design will not be covered.

2. Your personal clinometer.

3. A openness to work with a small group in a collaborative manner.

4. Footwear, clothing, water, and food to sustain a day in the desert. Spring in the area may be 90 degrees and searing or 35 degrees and snowing.

INSTRUCTORS

From traditional beginnings as a passionate volunteer trailbuilder, Greg Mazu transitioned to acting as trail manager at Lory State Park near Fort Collins, CO, and then to the boss of himself, as owner-operator of Singletrack Trails. In the last fifteen years, Greg has developed the company into one of the country’s most experienced trail contractors, while adding related outdoor recreation businesses such as Tools For Trails and Desert Rat Tours to his management retinue. His current professional title of Chief Encouragement Officer reflects both his corporate management ethos and dedication to improving the knowledge base and quality of singletrack trails.

As a natural surface trail educator, planner, designer, and construction manager, Scott Linnenburger has worked with more than 150 volunteer groups, youth corps, non-profits, and land management agencies around the country. An advocate for community-driven recreation and conservation, Scott led multiple programs for the International Mountain Bicycling Association and has continued that work as a principal of Kay-Linn Enterprises for the last ten years.

Greg and Scott have logged hundreds of hours in the field together in far-flung locales engaged in “philosophical discussions” regarding final trail alignments and have managed limit attacks on one another to projectile pin flags and random derisive comments about the other’s upbringing. We have both worked in too many “design by committee”, “my way or the highway”, and “that’s the way we do it” to count and have long been interested in putting together a trail design seminar based on critical thinking and optimization.

GIS for Trails

Dates: Sunday, March 17 & Monday, March 18, 2019
(lunch provided both days)
Cost: $300
Instructor: Emilie Young Vigneault, Sentiers Boréals (PTBA Member)

workshop description

GIS is a great tool in trail building. It can be used as a layout tool for future development projects or as a mapping tool for user and risk management teams. In order to properly use GIS, you need to know how to manage your data, from collection to integration in a GIS software, how to properly layout your data for users maps or technical maps for trail builders. GIS is also a strong tool for trails assessment. Participants will be introduced to various GIS software, data collection from database and field data, basics of layout and trails assessments with hands-on experiments with QGIS.

Learning Objectives

Participants will learn the strength and limitations of various GIS software and its uses for trails building, planning and management. They will get hands-on experience on the basics of mapping layout for users and trail builders with QGIS including collecting data and properly managing a database,

Workshop format

Day 1 Morning in the classroom, Afternoon 1-3 pm in the field, 3-4 pm in the classroom

Day 2 Morning in the classroom

Participants will need a laptop with QGIS software pre-install (free open-source available on internet for PC and MAC)

Terrain Dynamics for Trail Folks

2 Day Workshop- Day 1 in classroom, day 2 in the field.
Dates: Sunday, March 17 & Monday, March 18, 2019 (lunch provided both days)
Cost: $300
Instructors: 
Michael Shields, Michael D. Shields Consulting, PTBA Member
Alex Man, PhD, PEng, Scatliff+Miller+Murray

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SUMMARY

A 2-day in-depth look at the variable nature and basic mechanics of the ground we build trails across, including the potential snares hidden within it. Treats that ground as a dynamic “structure” and covers slope stability factors (including on “flat ground”); soil mechanics (deposition mechanisms, granulation, density and porosity, internal friction, rock/gravel content, organics, soil chemistry, soil moisture); terrain hydrology (water entry, surface and subsurface water movement, drainage area, flat ground drainage, sheet vs channeled flow, the effects of freeze/thaw, “toe of slope” accumulations, “drainable edges” in topography); the role of bedrock (simplified rock mechanics) and vegetation; all these factors in combination; surface indicators of subsurface phenomena; and using this knowledge in the selection of trail routes, grades, structures and drainage systems that work. Includes classroom and field exercises, and a binder of reference material.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Awareness of the complexity of the ground we build trails on, and the variety of forces influencing trail “sustainability”.

2. Ability to sample and analyze soils in the field, and at least generally predict their performance under traffic loads over time.

3. Ability to recognize surface indicators of subsurface conditions and trends.