New accessible trails expand Upper Valley recreational opportunities

RANDOLPH — Anna Light navigated her adaptive bike, named Ms. Red Bike, along a trail in Randolph, trekking through fields and a stand of trees.

“I like going fast,” the 25-year-old Randolph resident said.

A year ago, Light wouldn’t have had an opportunity like this, because the trail used to be a bumpy dirt path. But thanks to a partnership between the Randolph Recreation Department and the Upper Valley Trails Alliance, those with mobility challenges now have more recreational opportunities at the town-owned park.

“I think that it has brought people’s level of awareness up to what could be,” Randolph Interim Recreation Director Morgan Easton said in an interview at the recreation area located off Park Street in downtown Randolph.

The new trail in Randolph, which was built by Upper Valley Trails Alliance crews this summer, is part of a larger push in the recreation community to make the outdoors more open and accessible to all, said Russell Hirschler, executive director of the Norwich-based nonprofit organization. While the organization built its first wheelchair-accessible trail at the Vermont Institute of Natural Science in Quechee in 2011, he noticed a shift during the COVID-19 pandemic. As more people took to the outdoors, there was a growing push to make sure more people had access.

“Communities are recognizing that … investing in access for all is a good thing for the people who live in the community, good thing for kids in the schools and hoping for tourism,” Hirschler said during an August interview. Prior to the pandemic, the trails alliance usually built one accessible trails project per year; this summer they’re building four.

The Trails Alliance is part of a coalition that received a $644,000 Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative Community grant to form a Vermont Trail Accessibility Hub grant in 2024 to study trail accessibility. As part of that work, Trails Alliance staff began conducting accessibility assessments throughout Vermont, where they examined potential sites to build an accessible trail system.

One of those site visits was last summer to the park in Randolph, which includes a playground, soccer fields, a disc golf course and an outdoor pool. In the year since, town officials applied for grant funding to make the project a reality. The roughly $50,000 project was funded by a Vermont “Building Communities” grant and $25,000 from the recreation department’s reserve funds, Easton said.

This summer, a 3 to 5 person crew spent around 400 hours converting the dirt pathway into a flattened and widened trail so that someone using a wheelchair can safely roll along it. It took 220 tons of ledgestone and 200 tons of hardpack to create the roughly mile of accessible trails added to the site this summer.

For Light, the benefits are both physical and mental. As Light traversed the trail, her personal care assistant Cherie Landi followed from a distance on the perimeter.

“It gives her independence,” Landi said, noting that there aren’t any other places like the trail in the area.

The duo visits up to three times a week. Sometimes they see Rose Dice, a 76-year-old Randolph resident, who uses a cane because she has a spinal cord disease.

“If you have any kind of a disability … you need to have a flat, safe surface,” Dice said while sitting at a picnic table at the park.

The new trail checks both those boxes.

“I thank God I have something like this,” Dice said, noting that she walks there multiple times a week.

Prior to the new trail, Dice would often walk on the town’s sidewalks, which could be uneven in some places, making them hard to navigate. The park trail is flat and has shade. It also allowed Dice to connect with more community members, including Owen Dybvig of Randolph and his personal care assistant, Tara Tucker, of Braintree, Vt.

“We get outside every day,” Tucker said during an interview with Dybvig, 24. “It’s just so vital.”

Like Dice, the pair have struggled with the sidewalks. They often have to walk in the road to get around difficult patches, which makes it challenging for Dybvig to navigate in his wheelchair. They do not have the same challenges with the trail.

“This has been the best as far as flat surface walking,” Tucker said.

Whenever the Trails Alliance plans a project, it is mindful of ongoing maintenance costs and the time required to complete those tasks, Hirschler said. In Randolph, that primarily means “good mowing to make sure the weeds and the grass” don’t encroach on the trail.

“It really takes a full year to see what will happen,” he said, noting that the gravel and ground need to settle and adjust to the weather.

“It may be there’s a low spot we didn’t see,” Hirschler said. But even that fix is simple: Workers can scoop up some hard pack and use it to fill the spot. “The idea is that 95% of this, you shouldn’t have to do anything at any time and every once in a while … if you get crazy rain and it starts to channel across the way, we have to figure out how do you move water off the trail? But the idea is that you shouldn’t have to do that.”

Even though Easton knew there was a need and it would be used, she has been impressed by the community response.

“Everyone has a best interest in mind,” she said. While people have a general love of parks, they might not all use the tennis courts or the playground or the softball fields. “Everyone has really come around to be here at the park for the path spot and everyone has a best interest in that.”

“Now Anna finally gets to use her tricycle that she hasn’t had a safe place to use. Owen has an opportunity to roll around, uninhibited by traffic. Rose has more of a shady spot that’s got more nature that she can … walk around in … and on a level surface.”

In addition to the trail, other accessibility-related improvements have been added to the space, like lessening the slope up to a lookout spot over the White River, which runs through the park, Hirschler said. Plans are in the works to install picnic tables that are wheelchair-accessible.

As the organization has continued its work, it has identified ways to “reduce these little barriers here and there,” he said. In Randolph, that included spreading some hard pack around a set of bleachers so wheelchair users can more easily roll up them.

“Communities can think of doing little things, not only big things,” Hirschler said, noting that not every accessibility-related project has to cost thousands of dollars.

Resiliency and accessibility

In recent years, floods have damaged trails throughout the Upper Valley, causing water to race down steep slopes and carry debris along with it. That was the case in July 2023, Hirschler noted. While the trails alliance has always kept sustainability in mind, it started to gain more traction among the towns and organizations that trail crews work with.

Over the years, the Upper Valley Trails Alliance has been hired by the town of Lyme and worked with the Lyme Conservation Commission. Those projects run the gamut from building accessible trails to a popular bird-watching spot to rebuilding bridges that cross wetlands.

In early August, members of the Upper Valley High School Trail Corps, which the trails alliance manages each summer, were at the Chaffee Nature Preserve in Lyme to rebuild bridges. Many trail systems utilize so-called bog bridges, which are often made of logs and are close to the ground. This summer’s work cost around $16,000 and was funded by the town.

“They’ve rotted away over the years,” Hirschler said at the Chaffee Nature Preserve as he pointed out the new raised bridge with a flat wooden deck that crew members were building. “It’s out of the mud and out of the water and allows for a really stable walking platform to get you through. While it’s not fully wheelchair accessible, it is much-improved access for anyone who has issues being steady on their feet.”

Not everyone will be able to access every trail. The idea is to remove barriers so that more people can. Even simple trail maintenance like removing rocks that are sticking out of the ground can make a difference.

“Those are the kinds of trails that are better for everyone,” Hirschler said.

But, he noted, not all trail systems can be made more accessible, nor should they be.

“It just wouldn’t make sense,” he said, using Mount Cube in Orford as an example. People like the challenge of the climb and the organization wouldn’t want to change that. It could, however, look at ways to make it more resilient. “If there was a section that went uphill, can we put in a switchback? That makes it a little easier for people and more sustainable over time.”

Those decisions could ultimately reduce a trail’s upkeep costs over time. Accessible trails, however, are more expensive to create. For example, it costs around $30 per linear foot to build a hard-pack trail, versus $5 to $10 per linear foot for a simple footpath.

“Theoretically, that’s always the idea: If you build better first, you will have less maintenance costs in the end,” Hirschler said.

It is also looking toward the future.

The Upper Valley Trails Alliance has made a point of informing potential project funders about those risks.

“It’s going to cost more on the front end, but if you do it well on the front end, you don’t have to replace the bridge, you don’t have to rebuild the trail,” Hirschler said.

It is an idea that’s gaining traction — and even inspiring — the next generation. Stevie DeFelice, a crew leader who is studying adventure education at Plymouth State University.

“My goal is to get people into the outdoors so that they want to sustain it,” DeFelice, of Canaan, said. “If you have an attachment to something, you’re more likely to preserve it.”