We are excited to announce the projects we selected for funding for the 2024 Legacy Trail Program grant cycle. In this second year of the program, we funded a total of $1.35 million to 27 organizations.
Click on the project name below for more details. Also see the interactive map of awarded projects.
SEEDS Ecology and Education Centers
Amount Awarded: $74,638.00
SEEDS, North Country Trail (NCT) volunteers, and community volunteers will work with a designated Huron-Manisetee National Forest (HMNF) partner to improve aquatic habitat on the Manistee, White, Muskegon, and Pere Marquette River watersheds through trail rerouting and reconstruction, decommissioning of social trails, and deletion of unauthorized roads and camping areas which negatively impact the river's health.
Wild Arizona
Amount Awarded: $77,000.00
This project will restore the final 14 miles of the 53-mile National Recreation Highline Trail.
Wyoming Conservation Corps
Amount Awarded: $75,000.00
This project will complete deferred maintenance on the South Teton Trail, the North Teton Trail, the Face Trail, and portions of the Teton Crest Trail within Alaska Basin.
Santa Fe Fat Tire Society
Amount Awarded: $100,000.00
Building upon the successful completion of Phase 1 in 2022, the Santa Fe Fat Tire Society (SFFTS) proposed to the U.S. Forest Service in Jan 2023 Phase 2 of the Arroyo Hondo project, aiming to expand the existing trail network by 25.6 miles.
Wood River Trails Coalition
Amount Awarded: $96,000.00
This project addresses issues with three bridge sites along the first 0.3 miles of the Greenhorn Gulch Trail.
AmeriCorps St. Louis
Amount Awarded: $90,530.00
Utilizing its corps of national service Members, AmeriCorps St. Louis (ACSTL) will complete trail improvements over 3-4 weeks in summer 2024.
Carolina Mountain Club
Amount Awarded: $94,500.00
All worksites will use an eight-person paid trail crew working with experienced Carolina Mountain Club (CMC) volunteer crew members. Work will begin Fall 2024.
Cottonwood Canyons Foundation
Amount Awarded: $100,000.00
The goal of this project is to increase resilience to extreme weather, flooding, and disasters, and mitigate effects of erosive disturbances, through infrastructure installation and heavy maintenance (reducing deferred maintenance backlog) on trails in the Tri-canyons Area.
Enchanted Circle Trails Association
Amount Awarded: $77,505.00
Although the Rio Fernando de Taos has long been ignored, a community-wide initiative is underway to revive and safeguard the watershed.
Mountains to Sound Greenway
Amount Awarded: $63,212.00
This project seeks to reroute a section of the Mineral Creek Trail, which was decommissioned along with its associated trailhead in June 2023 to accommodate river side-channel and floodplain restoration projects on the Kachess River.
Pocahontas Trails
Amount Awarded: $75,908.00
Poca Trails recognizes the need for road to trail conversion in the Second Fork area. The selected roads are generally impassable, require watershed improvement, and there is a need for access into public land.
The Watershed Research and Training Center
Amount Awarded: $78,763.00
The Trinity River Watershed Trail Improvement Project addresses 21 miles of deferred trail maintenance on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest’s Trinity River and Shasta-McCloud Management Units.
Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Amount Awarded: $61,237.00
Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation (SBFC) and Idaho Trails Association (ITA) will work together to restore tread and improve stream fords severely damaged after the 2021 Boundary Fire burned at high intensity, followed by several years of intense localized precipitation events.
Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI)
Amount Awarded: $83,919.00
The Mount Shavano Trail and Riparian Habitat Restoration Project will build over 3700 feet of full-bench trail in a more sustainable location, installing 125 timber check steps and 2700 square feet of retaining walls.
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers
Amount Awarded: $38,420.00
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (WRV) is working with the South Park Ranger District and local partners to construct a 4.5-mile singletrack connector trail between the smaller Pike-San Isabel National Forest trail system North of Fairplay and the expansive Summit County System across Boreas Pass on the White River National Forest.
Wilderness Volunteers
Amount Awarded: $15,000.00
Our Oak Creek Canyon Watershed Restoration project is part of a larger effort to reverse the long-term trend of declining water quality in Oak Creek.
Blue Ridge Bartram Trail Conservancy
Amount Awarded: $11,100.00
This project will involve maintenance on a highly popular 2-mile section of the Bartram National Recreation Trail, from Wallace Branch trailhead to William's Pulpit.
Pend Oreille Pedalers
Amount Awarded: $15,000.00
The project reroutes an existing 1.1-mile user-created trail in seven locations where it follows disused skid road corridors at gradients of more than 15 percent.
The Pisgah Conservancy
Amount Awarded: $20,000.00
This project will utilize professional trail-building contractors to rehabilitate this .325-mile legacy trail to re-establish it as a sustainable Forest Service (FS) system trail.
Access Fund
Amount Awarded: $20,000.00
This project focuses on the Slippery Ford section of the Pony Express National Historic Trail, which provides access to cultural history, scenic hiking, and rock climbing at Lovers Leap.
Northwoods Volunteer Connection
Amount Awarded: $10,810.00
The 3-million-acre Superior National Forest contains 2,000 lakes, 400 miles of hiking trails, and one of the most visited, federally designated wilderness areas in the country, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).
Friends of the Dillon Ranger District
Amount Awarded: $19,909.00
Project work will include replacing an old bridge on the West Ridge Trail located in Summit County, CO.
Vermont Huts Association
Amount Awarded: $20,000.00
A 2.5-mile segment of the Catamount Trail located on the Manchester District of the Green Mountain National Forest will be improved, including hardening water crossings and muddy sections, smoothing out parts of the trail, and re-establishing proper drainage.
American Hiking Society
Amount Awarded: $7,222.00
Volunteers will work in Big Draft Wilderness on minor tread restoration, brushing of vegetation and removing slough and berm to improve the Blue Bend Loop Trail.
American Hiking Society
Amount Awarded: $7,877.00
10 volunteers, including an American Hiking crew leader will join this project to backpack into a stunning river valley of granite and pine trees and help restore access.
American Hiking Society
Amount Awarded: $9,378.00
16 volunteers including an American Hiking Society crew leader will join two Forest Service staff to repair the Vesuvius Recreation Area Trail System.
American Hiking Society
Amount Awarded: $7,072.00
Volunteers will work on constructing trail drainage structures such as water bars to prevent erosion, installing check dams to reclaim sections of incised tread, constructing a turnpike to get through a wet/muddy area, clearing brush out of the trail corridor and restoration of campsites and fire rings near Echo and Billy Jones Lakes.
