Homer Soil and Water hosted a gathering of the Homer Trails Summit at the Kenai Peninsula College campus on Tuesday October 27th to provide Homer trail groups the opportunity to share their current status with the community. Presenters included: Hig Higman with Ground Truth Alaska, Camille Johnson with Eastland Trails, Tom Underwood for the Watermelon Trail, Dave Mastolier with SnoMads, Dan Court with the city of Homer public works, Charlie Barnwell with the Woodard Creek Trail, Kasey Aderhold with Friends of Kachemak Bay State Parks, Amanda Kelly with Kachemak Heritage Land Trust, Dave Brann with the Water Trail and the Kachemak Ski Trails, Bob Shavelson and Anna Meredith. Each speaker gave a brief presentation and current review of the trail or trail system they represent.
The goal of bringing everyone together was networking. As Kira Wagner, coordinator with Homer Soil and Water explained:
“I am excited. There's so many little details that got me excited that as we work with all the different organizations, seeing what everybody's doing, we know what's going on. But not each organization knows what the other ones are doing. That's the main motivation for us holding that event, and sure enough, I saw little sparks of connection between different people. So we've designed it to have an open space towards the end for people to be able to hang out and just pop over and talk to each other for that networking ability,” Wagner said.
Wagner provided a general review of the summit meeting this week: “We did this about three years ago, and it was good then too. But we figured it was about time …So much is happening right now with the opening up of the Watermelon Trail, the new four wheeler trail zone going in there, the Eastland Trails getting built out. A lot of these are the people that are involved in those trails know about what's going on, but nobody else. There were even people in the audience that asked where the Eastland Trails even were. So that's what we need to remember. We get in our little worlds, and so to get the news out about what all the different ones are doing. That those are projects that are happening and moving forward,” she said.
Another key feature was the idea of how to engage youth in trail work that has been operating in the community for a long time:
“So they also address the fact that there's a Graying of the Fleet. Everybody's getting older that started these trails and are dedicated to these trails. So having Planet Youth described and explained there seems like a complete non sequitur because Planet Youth is not a trail organization, but it is a youth-led program in town that where youth get to decide what they need, what they want, what their community looks like, what they want to be involved in, what they want to do. If they don't know those things are happening, they're not going to support them either. So, just getting all of these groups to understand that they could be advertising on Where Do I Homer, and they could be reaching out to youth and connecting better. That to me was fairly landmark as well,” Wagner said.
Wagner concluded with these comments about trail stewardship:
“The fact is, there is a lot of opportunity for having a reason to get out on these trails and feel like you're supporting them. Like really, it's just ownership and stewardship. So, like Dave Brann announced, “Hey, anybody wants to talk to me, I'll teach you how to drive the snow machine and the groomer, and and you could have access to driving around on a snow machine anytime in the winter time.” You know, like that's something that “oh that sounds awesome.” You know, somebody might totally spark on that, and then they're doing something that supports hundreds of people. You know, so you just have to meet where people's interests are. Oh, I'd rather haul a chainsaw around and go through the state park and clear a trail. Great, you know that's we've got a spot for you too. But giving people leadership opportunities instead of just grunt labor kind of concepts, you know, that I think really came out last night. It's not just about work that needs to be done. It's also how fun it would be to be a part of a big group that's going out and clearing a trail that hasn't been cleared well in years and has an opportunity to open it up for everybody else,” Wagner said.
Reporting from Homer, this is Emilie Springer.
