National Trails Day

Less than a week away...June 7 is National Trails Day! The celebration is coordinated by the American Hiking Society. It occurs the first Saturday of June. As trail runners, we should be particularly cognizant of this date. Make sure you get out to the trails and appreciate all the hard work that people have put in to make your runs possible. I'll be at Weldon Springs State Park running the Clinton Community YMCA's "5-Hour Frenzy" on a small trail loop within the park. I've never run there so this is my way of getting out to a new trail and enjoying nature. I'll be pretty beat after the 5-hour run, so no trail work for me at Weldon Springs. Maybe I'll head over to Clinton Lake on Sunday, June 8 to pick up some trash and cut down the itch weed.

This year (2008) is the 50th anniversary of the Ice Age Trail up in Wisconsin. The Ice Age Park and Trail Foundation has some special activities planned for that anniversary. I hope our northern runners can make it out to that trail this coming weekend. For those closer to central Illinois, maybe you can make it out to Clinton Lake, Kickapoo, Kennekuk Cove, Allerton, Forest Glen, or Lake of the Woods. Getting out and enjoying the trail is great, helping keep the trail maintained is even better. Even picking up trash helps. If you find areas that need extensive trail work, contact the local park folks and volunteer to help.

For those that want to contribute more than a few hours to trail maintenance, think about doing a week-long volunteer vacation. Jeff and I are heading down to Mammoth Cave (KY) this October to do a week of trail work with the American Hiking Society. Care to join us? If Kentucky isn't your thing, they have quite a few volunteer trips all across the country.