Our Stories

Hike the Hill 2012 Final: What we learned

By Bruce Matthews, NCTA Executive Director

9:00am

Andrea Ketchmark, NCTA’s Director of Trail Development and I wrapped up our 2012 participation in Hike the Hill this week. See the previous Blogs and Facebook postings for the specifics. Here are some of our takeaways from this year–what we learned, what we might do about it. In no particular order:

• We hope the American Hiking Society and the Partnership for the National Trails System work out the bugs next year that impeded cooperation this year. Too much to gain by working together not to be doing it!
• We were discouraged by the commonly expressed sentiment, by both Congress and administration representatives, to “not expect much” out of the rest of the 112th Congress. Frankly we haven’t seen much of anything yet so far except partisan bickering and a lack of ability to even pass a budget. The forecast calls for more gridlock, and more election-year jockeying and one-upsmanship. Feels like the ship of state is dead in the water. For sure the prevailing attitude in DC is depressing.
• The above bullet point notwithstanding, there are still islands of hope and faith among our elected representatives, and the cool thing is that our trails, their story and that of the folks who volunteer to bring national trails to America are a real antidote to this DC malaise we’ve observed. Staffers light up when we tell them our stories. They remind them of what’s still very good and right and valuable about America, and in our case about our rugged red plaid nation in America’s northern heartland. I don’t think I could stress enough how important this message was in our meetings, and how important it is to be getting out there. We bring hope.
• We may, with a lot of hard work and some political legerdemain,possibly get an Arrowhead Re-Route Bill introduced in this congress. But almost no one believed it would go anywhere. We will keep trying .
• NCTA needs to dramatically ramp up its advocacy efforts at the state level. We need to grow our advocacy capacity so we sustain our current momentum year-round. One lesson from the Cravaack debacle (refusing to introduce the Arrowhead Re-Route) is that the more we can frontload the discussion with constituents from the same district as the Member of Congress, the more doors open, and stay open.
• There are administration initiatives underway (America’s Great Outdoors, Federal Interagency Commission on Outdoor Recreation) that may yet generate benefits of consequence for the National Trails System.
• The Congressional re-districting going on in this election year will have important implications for future NCTA advocacy. Not only will some of the Representatives’ faces be changing, but representation on the trail as well. One example is MI-01, which adds about 200 more miles of the NCNST to its already 600 miles!
• Our Federal Agency partners are more focused on working with partners than ever before. As budgets shrink, they understand the value our organizations bring to the table. The USDA Forest Service, National Park Service, and US Fish and Wildlife Service are listening to our concerns and needs and trying to find creative ways to get the job done.
• We will continue to communicate with our Representatives about the importance of keeping Transportation Enhancements and the Recreational Trails Program in the Transportation re-authorization. RTP and TE funds have been instrumental in completing sections of the NCT.