Dawn Packard of Blue Sky Trails #110

Trail EAffect with Dawn Packard of Blue Sky Trails #110

• How Dawn got into Trail Building as an intern with Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks
  • Cracking down on Illegal Bolting for Rock Climbing
• Building an access trail to the Flatirons for Climbing access
  • Working with Dick Lyman
  • Working with Jim Angel and learning the trail building trade
• “People Don’t Need Trails - The Land Does” – Jim Angel and Dawn’s explanation of this quote
• Extractive Recreation
• Being recruited to be the Executive Director for the Headwaters Trail Alliance from the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative
  • Connecting Communities with Non-Motorized Recreation in Grand County CO
  • Moving a section of trail out of Wilderness Designation so bike use can be allowed
• Introduction to Mechanized Trail Building
  • Sweco 480
  • Mechanized Trail Builder Retreat in North Carolina, with Rich Edwards as her instructor
  • Learning through failure with the Sweco
• Starting Blue Sky Trails
  • Moving to North Dakota as work started booming in 2008
• North Dakota Trails – 100’s of miles of trails
• What Dawn prefers to build in terms of trails and trail projects
• Becoming a PTBA member in 2004 and the Evolution of the PTBA
• Women in Trail Building
  • Women in Trail Building gathering in Bentonville during the 2022 PTBA Conference
• Words of Wisdom by Dawn Packard – Fly Low Under the Radar and Get Shit Done…
• Closing Comments and Thank You’s

Dawn’s Bio:

Dawn Packard has worked in Resource Management since 1990, starting her career as a Ranger for City of Boulder Mountain Parks and Open Space. While with the City she worked with the legendary trail designer Jim Angell, designing and implementing climbing access trails on Dinosaur Mountain. After ten years with Boulder, Dawn was hired as the Field Programs Coordinator for the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative (CFI), serving on the design team and overseeing construction on summit trails on many of Colorado's 14,000' peaks. From CFI, Dawn spent five years as the Executive Director of Headwaters Trails Alliance (HTA) in Grand County, Colorado, coordinating multi-agency and public-private partnerships benefiting trail development throughout the Middle Park region. Dawn founded Blue Sky Trails LLC in 2003 and has been a member of PTBA since 2004. Blue Sky Trails LLC offers a wide range of trail construction, design, and planning services to professional land managers. (Source: Trailbuilder.org)

Links:

Blue Sky Trails LLC: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064031945840

Professional Trail Builders Association: https://www.trailbuilders.org/

Headwaters Trail Alliance: https://headwaterstrails.org/

This Podcast has been edited and produced by Evolution Trail Services

Trail EAffect Show Links:

Trail Effect Podcast Website: www.traileaffectpodcast.com

Contact Josh at evolutiontrails@gmail.com

Support Trail EAffect through donations at: https://www.patreon.com/traileaffect

You can also reach out and donate via PayPal or other means if you feel so inclined to do so.