Welcome!
Thank you for visiting my site. Whether you are looking for a consultant to help you with trail design, construction project management, community involvement and engagement, or just want to learn more about trails, I hope you find your time here worthwhile.
“The art behind trail design is where the magic happens. A trail should provide visitors with “Wow!” moments. This can be a feature the trail takes them to, a view, a rock formation – any number of “gifts” bestowed by Nature, and waiting to be enjoyed.”
About Me and My Work
In the early 1990s, I began maintaining, building and designing trails as a volunteer. From 2006 to 2019, I served as trails program coordinator for Pima County. In 2008, I formed my own trail design & construction business, called Southwest Trail Solutions. In 2023, I transitioned to consulting.
My purpose in doing this was to narrow my focus to small, meaningful projects. I have seen the joy and satisfaction that comes from a property owner or community resident having trails right outside their door, which I find extremely rewarding.
The Importance of Optimal Design
I love finding innovative solutions to maximize user enjoyment on smaller parcels of land,” he continued. My commitment to sustainable trails has often resulted in new design and construction techniques that I have developed, by myself and with colleagues. Poorly designed and built trails visit headaches on future generations of land managers and trail users. Erosion and user-made alternatives can impact both biological and cultural resources. The cost of ongoing maintenance and reroutes can exceed the original design and construction cost – and perhaps more important – the enjoyment that trails can provide may disappear. Examples of poorly designed trails are all too easy to find, and most of them remain in place because land managers lack the resources, and occasionally the motivation, to do the work necessary to repair and reroute them.
Experience, a critical component of trail building
Bringing the arts and sciences into a trail’s design cannot be completely appreciated without the experience to understand, recognize and merge them into a coherent and satisfactory result. The more experience a trail designer has the better the chances are that the route can be optimal for a sustainable trail, maximizing the user experience while ensuring that natural and cultural resources are protected; the secret sauce comes in teasing out nuances, looking beyond the basics.
Construction experience, in particular, is critical. If you lack the insight into that component of trail building, you cannot possibly know where it’s possible to build and where it’s not; or how to make minor adjustments to reduce the complexity (and cost) of construction. This experience should include machine and hand-building, as well as making crib walls and switchback turns.
Aesthetics
The art behind trail design is where the magic happens; a sense of wonder for the work of Nature is a powerful tool in trail design. A trail should provide visitors with “Wow!” moments. This can be a feature the trail takes them to, a view, a rock formation — any number of “gifts” bestowed by Nature, and awaiting to be enjoyed.