Get Ready For Sixth Annual National Trails Day

IMBA Trail News
Volume 11, Number 2
May-June 1998

IMBA again encourages its members and member clubs to get involved in National Trails Day, scheduled this year for June 6.

National Trails Day was created in 1993 in an effort to forward the goals of Trails for All Americans, a plan to establish a nationwide network of trails that brings people from their backyards to the backcountry and joins small towns to big cities to expansive wild lands. In 1997, National Trails Day participants in roughtly 3,000 events hiked or rode 18,000 miles of trail, performed maintenance work on 10,000 miles of trail and opened or built 2,500 miles of new trail.

The American Hiking Society, primary organizer of the event, is encouraging people to do more than attend an event. The theme this year is to encourage folks to join a local club and volunteer for more trail work, and to spend more time on the trail. AHS coordinates the program each year with help from thousands of trail clubs throughout the country and the NTD sponsor team: Backpacker magazine, DuPont Cordura nylon, Thorlos, Vasque Outdoor Footwear, Vibram soles, Eastern Mountain Sports, Recreational Equipment, Inc., the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and the USDA Forest Service.

For more information, call 888/766-HIKE to request a list of National Trails Day events going on in your area. Or send an e-mail to Brad Wilson at . You can also request an NTD planning manual which provides all the information needed to organize an NTD event in 1998.