Real Trail Assessment: Seeing the Trail Through the Eyes of a Professional

Half-day pre-Conference Workshop
Field-based Learning
Monday, March 18, 8 am - 12 pm
COST: $250
Level: All levels

Instructor:
Mike Riter, Trail Design Specialists, PTBA Member Company

DESCRIPTION: This 1/2 day pre-conference workshop features on the trail education focused on the basics of trail assessment including erosion and user-created problems. The workshop will include reading grades with a clinometer and applying an understanding of slope and trail grade to trail assessment. The group will identify and discuss the right and wrong segments of trail as well as possible solutions to perceived problems. Discussion will include strategies for water management, user management, and re-routes.

Learning Objectives:

• Reading trail and landscape grades and understanding relationship between those grades, water movement, and trail durability.

• Understanding the causes and symptoms of sustainability challenges related to trail use, maintenance, and management.

• Understanding nuances of sustainable trail design

• Evaluate solutions to trail problems

INSTRUCTOR: Mike Riter, Trail Design Specialists, PTBA Member Company
Mike is the president of Trail Design Specialists, a full service trail company focusing on trail design, construction and maintenance as well as planning, consulting and creative problem solving. Additionally Mike has provided education courses to more than 1500 people including the Trail Master certification, Trail Assessment and Mechanized Trail Construction. Before founding Trail Design Specialists in 1999, Mike was a founding member of the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew, an education and stewardship program built upon his knowledge, experience and understanding of sustainable trail design, construction and maintenance.