The Kansas City area has a ton of great trails for running, hiking and biking. There is a lot of variety if you get out and explore a little, some are more hidden than others. It's great to have options in all sections of Kansas City since we are such a spread out area. But apparently trails don't build or maintain themselves. There is a lot that goes into planning, building and maintaining the area trails all done by volunteers.
The
Urban Trail Co was created to help build funding for trail building, maintenance and to promote healthy use of the trail systems. Their
twitter feed is a great go to source to check if a trail is open or closed. Traffic on muddy trails in the area can cause damage and a lot more work to maintain. It's always good to check before you go since in years like this they can be closed quite frequently.
From Ben Reed, President of Urban Trail Co. :
Urban Trail Co. (formerly ERTA) needs funds for the upcoming 2016 trail season in order to fund all that goes on with the UTC trails in the KC area. All the trail systems require insurance policies so that UTC can have volunteers working on the land that we build trails on. UTC also needs to be able to repair and acquire new equipment, as well as pay for rental equipment that is needed along the way.
You may or may not know that the trails we all ride are 100% volunteer managed and maintained. A large majority of the volunteers provide their own equipment, fuel, maintenance of equipment, string, blades, chains, hammers, pry bars etc. in order to keep the trails in the condition they are today as well as build new trail. Urban Trail Co. needs to be able to provide equipment to our volunteers so that they don't have to use their own.
This years funding is already looking like it will be coming up short based on requests from each trail system. We currently have $5500 available and current requests from trail managers is coming in at $12,000. As you can see we have a big gap to fill in order to carry out the plans to add more single track to the KC trails as well as keep them in great shape.
How much is it worth to you to have some of the best trails in the midwest in your own back yard? Is $100 a year too much to ask? That is $8.33 a month. That is about the price of a good sixer of quality beer but the enjoyment of the trails lasts a lot longer. Please check out the fundraising campaign for this year and donate. The trails here in KC are worth it.
Heart of Trail
Urban Trail Co. is a non-profit 501c organization so all donations are tax deductible.
Ben
I think it is a great cause, if you have been out to the area trails you can really see and enjoy how much work is done with little funding so I just wanted to put this out there.
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