By Jeremy D. Wells
Carter County Times
How do you get a world class trail system in Carter County?
Well, in the case of the new trails planned for the wilderness area around Olive Hill’s town lake, you start with an idea. Then you apply for a grant. But the most important part of that process might be building partnerships.
That’s what Trail Town is doing with their plans for the lake. After coming up with the plan and receiving support from city council, Trail Town began building partnerships with other related groups. This included looking at ways the paths could tie into or support the Warrior’s Path National Trail coming through Carter County. It also included ideas for how the land could be used for activities associated with the Galaxy Project’s Pathfinder Initiative (itself a multi-organizational effort), use by the Boy Scouts, and other groups – in addition to ways those groups could help support the trail project.
The Boy Scouts, for instance, might build bird or bat boxes for the wildlife area, or help with identifying and marking native trees and plant life. Students from local high schools and universities could also use the space as an outdoor “living laboratory” to study things like water quality or habitat diversity.
All of those ideas, and more, were floated during a public meeting last week with Leah Mancabelli, a landscape architect from The International Mountain Biking Association.
Mancabelli, who works as a project manager for trail solutions out of the IMBA’s Colorado office, said she was excited to be in Olive Hill, noting that she grew up in Appalachian Pennsylvania and it “feels like coming home here.”
She also noted that although mountain biking was in their organization’s name, they were focused on more than just bike trails.
“We do shared use trail planning all over the country,” she explained. “We have a particular lens that we can take and make expert recommendations for mountain biking. But we understand that mountain biking is really only successful as a sport when all other users are also considered. So, we do hiking, we plan for equestrians, we really consider every user possible within the overall design of the trail system.”
Her organization ended up in Olive Hill after Max Hammond applied for a grant from them to help with the lake trail.
“Max and company applied for what’s called our Trail Accelerator Grant, which is a geo-restricted grant that funds projects like these. It’s a matching grant. So, they put funds towards the development of these trails and then we matched in kind the same amount of money. What that ultimately funds is us coming out onto the site, taking a look, and then producing the concept plan.”
Mancabelli said she would spend the next two days speaking with stakeholders and looking at the location. Then, she said, she would “go back to (my) desk, do the deliverable work, and then we’ll connect with the stakeholders again.”
Throughout the design process, though, she said she would be in constant contact with the groups involved.
“It’s not just something where we come in, look at it, and we do all the work by ourselves. It’s really a process. We stay in communication with y’all and then we can expect to have the concept plan done sometime in the late fall of this year.”
From there it’s up to Trail Town and their partners how to proceed with that plan.
While the trail system will be multi-use, Mancabelli said the region did have features that would be particularly exciting to mountain bike users who might travel to take advantage of what the community offers.
“Man, the hills our here get me so excited!” she said. “You guys have fantastic soils for developing mountain biking trails. There’s rock. There are different features. Your forests are so dynamic. It’s not just a monoculture, like you see out west. So, the terrain itself supports a really dynamic mountain biking experience. All that is construction dependent, who’s building it, but the potential is endless here. You could develop so many different styles of mountain biking trail and the landscape is just perfect for it.”
This could turn into a potential economic boom for outdoors tourism.
“Mountain bikers are well known for just how much money they spend to participate in that activity,” she said. “I can’t quote it perfectly, but there was an eco-economic development study done based on outdoor recreation and mountain bikers far and away spend the most money out of any studied recreation group. And part of that is they are willing to travel, they’re willing to drive all over the country, fly all over the country, just to go ride different trails. You’ll see that all over, not only the West, but even growing more and more out here in Appalachia and in the East. Communities like Knoxville are really capitalizing on that. West Virginia. And it’s something that y’all can do here.”
She said she was excited to see what the outcome of the process would be, and that she hoped it would bring good things to Olive Hill and surrounding communities.
“I’m just really taken with the community, and I’m so excited to help provide a source of pride for the community and just get people excited to be getting outside and having fun,” Mancabelli said.
Contact the writer at editor@cartercountytimes.com
