Sustainable Fun Workshop at NOHVCC Conference

Troy Scott Parker, Natureshape LLC
Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 8:30 AM - 5:30 PM
Minooka Park Environmental Center, Chilton County, Alabama (30 minutes south of Birmingham)

Register Online
$185, includes lunch and full-color book Natural Surface Trails by Design by Troy Scott Parker
9 seats are still available

Number of workshop attendees:

Carpooling from conference hotel to Minooka Park:

Credit cards are preferred in our secure, easy-to-use online registration process. Checks and purchase orders can also be accommodated in the same process.
NOTE: During Checkout, be sure to select shipping option #7, "Workshop Registration Only," to avoid default shipping fees. Books will be distributed during the workshop.

Workshop Overview


	We want trails that are naturalistic, sustainable, and fun all at the same time.

How can the same features that make an OHV trail sustainable also make it fun? What is the physical shape of fun? How can agency staff officially talk about “fun” in bureaucratically palatable language? How can you decide which areas have the highest potential for the best OHV trails? How can you instantly know how sustainable a given trail can be—and concisely argue your conclusion? How can you quickly and easily evaluate—even measure—both sustainability and fun? How can you use appropriate trail design to minimize expensive trail construction, maintenance and trail structures? How can you help OHV users become genuinely useful trail evaluators, designers, maintainers, and even trail builders? How can you use these ideas on your own trails?

In this indoor/outdoor workshop, Troy Scott Parker of Natureshape LLC demonstrates an integrated approach for OHV trails. Using the system of thought introduced in his book, Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails, you’ll learn answers to the above questions and more:

How human feelings, human actions, and physical forces of trail use and erosion affect trails

How to predict trail changes over time

How to base trail design on both prediction and human feelings

How to put yourself in both the rider’s and the land manager’s boots in working with trails

How to achieve cheaper, smarter, faster, and better—all at the same time

All levels welcome
Regardless of how little or much you know about OHV trails, this system of thought makes it possible to learn all of this in one day. Both experts and novices will benefit. You can also use the concepts you learn here on non-motorized trails.

Outdoor Component
We’ll use the OHV trails at Minooka Park as an outdoor lab to practice what you’ll learn. We’ll walk the trails and site, not ride, so come prepared for some on-trail hiking and off-trail bushwhacking. We’ll go out rain or shine unless it’s just too miserable outside, in which case we’ll do it all indoors.

Carpooling and Where to Meet
We’ll organize carpooling from the NOHVCC Conference hotel (Radisson) to Minooka Park, about 30 minutes south of Birmingham. The park is an easy drive, mostly by freeway. Important: Drivers and riders meet in the Radisson lobby near the spiral stairs at 7:45 AM.

15 Person Limit
Due to the outdoor component, this workshop is limited to 15 participants. The number of seats remaining are shown above.

Fee
$185 includes lunch and the book of Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails by Troy Scott Parker.

As part of the workshop, you'll receive a copy of Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails by Troy Scott Parker. This new, full-color book introduces the system and covers the Foundation Level. It's the first book in the Trails by Design series.

More Info

From years of research into how trails actually work, I've found how to understand most physical and experiential aspects of trails in terms of eleven concepts. These concepts—basic forces and relationships uniting physics and human feelings—literally underlie and explain nearly everything about how trails, land, and trail use (including OHV use) interact. They underlie all trail design, construction, and maintenance techniques. Because they describe the real world vs. wishful thinking, the concepts also largely determine how successful a given trail management strategy will be.

Discovering these concepts led me to realize that trails are best understood as a system with three levels (see diagram at left). The eleven concepts are the Foundation Level of Basic Forces and Relationships that support everything else. If something can't work at the Foundation Level, it can't work at higher levels, either. The Middle Level is trail design, construction, and maintenance techniques supported by the Foundation Level. The Upper Level is Trail Purpose and Management which often helps determine how trails are made, used, and maintained. Yet management cannot successfully decree something that the Foundation Level cannot support.

In this one-day workshop, we'll stick mostly to the Foundation Level and some of the Middle Level. This means we'll be looking at trails from the point of view of visitors and raw physics (inherent sustainability) rather than ecosystem management or NIMBY issues (management or social sustainability).

Mental Preparation
Come prepared with a new room in your brain to look at trails in a more comprehensive way.

Although the eleven Foundation Level concepts take time and practice to master, they can be learned and used quickly. In the morning, indoors, we'll introduce the concepts and how they work with many photo examples.

In the afternoon, we'll head out on Minooka Park's trails to practice using the concepts in the real world. We'll practice identifying the concepts in the real world, using them to quickly and easily evaluate trail experience and sustainability, and, finally, to design hypothetical new trails. We won't build anything, though.

Please bring photos
If you can, please bring photos of your trail successes and problems. We'll use them as learning tools for problem solving. We'll view them in small groups so prints or printouts work better than slides or digital files, but we can look at photos on laptops, too.

About the Instructor
Troy Scott Parker is the president of Natureshape LLC. He has designed and built trails for the National Park Service, USDA Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy, and others. He authored the newly published full-color book, Natural Surface Trails by Design: Physical and Human Design Essentials of Sustainable, Enjoyable Trails. He authored the popular Trail Design and Management Handbook for the Open Space & Trails Department of Pitkin County, Colorado, an internationally used design guide for multiple use concrete/asphalt trails, crushed stone trails, boardwalks, and other trail features. For the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, he authored a major portion of Site-Level Design and Development Guidelines for Recreational Trails, a comprehensive planning, design, construction, and maintenance guide for all trail types and uses (unpublished as of this writing). He is a past president of the Professional Trailbuilders Association and a popular presenter at trail conferences.

Involved in trail research and education since 1985, he has a growing collection of more than 13,000 photographs of all aspects of natural surface and paved trails, trail bridges, boardwalks, and other trail-related features in over 100 categories. All photos in this workshop are from that collection.

From other design-oriented careers, he is also an experienced book designer, graphic artist, and software engineer.

For More Information
Contact Troy Scott Parker