Significant plans to the NPS Trails Underway

July 30, 2024

The National Park Service (NPS) is reevaluating the trails in Beaver Valley, and while their intentions are good, several concerns have emerged.

We created sliders below so you can compare the maps. We recognize how difficult it is to sift through a 91 page document.

Please note that the "no action" plan is a misnomer. There are definitive actions and trail closures defined in the "no action" plan.

The NPS has recently released a plan to improve the trails system, which includes closing trails and improving signage. The criteria for trail closures focus on preventing trails on steep slopes, addressing erosion issues, and closing user-created trails for safety reasons. However, this plan raises several significant issues:

Loss of Essential Trails: Many trails that people rely on will be closed. Users have created these trails to connect critical areas within the park, and some places would be difficult to access without them. 
 
Creation of New User-Created Trails: Without properly addressing the thorough connection of areas, more user-created trails will emerge, as they always have. The NPS already struggles keeping up with current trail maintenance, and new trails will form when trees fall or existing trails become disconnected. This spontaneous trail creation is part of the beauty of how the current system evolved.
 
Exclusion of Local Advocates: The NPS released this plan without seeking public input in advance. Doing so does not incorporate the experience and knowledge of the local residents who understand these trails the best. There are thousands of advocates ready to help the NPS fulfill its mission, yet we are consistently left out of the process.
Moreover, it has been rumored that the individuals responsible for analyzing and redrawing the trail map conducted their work remotely from Colorado, without ever stepping foot in Beaver Valley. This approach feels particularly insensitive and disconnected, failing to consider the unique characteristics and needs of our local trail system.

The NPS should have prioritized engaging with local users and stakeholders long before implementing such a significant plan. The park is already on step 10 of 13 of this project and we are just finding out about this initiative. This lack of direct engagement highlights a broader issue of making decisions in a vacuum.

Stakeholders, including Save The Valley and the Beaver Valley Preservation Alliance, were not notified of the NPS's intentions, once again leaving us scrambling at the last minute. Our organizations, which actively advocate for the land's preservation and who have reach of 10,000 stakeholders, were not consulted, further underscoring the disconnect between the park administration and the local user base.

To respect the generations-old systems that are cornerstones of our community, stakeholder input should be gathered before any work begins, and stakeholders should be informed well in advance. Changes to the trail system should be implemented gradually and on a smaller scale to avoid overwhelming the community.

NPS Press release
Meeting Notices
Full Brandywine Valley Trail Plan
Project website

Participate in the public comment period from July 2 to August 1, 2024, by submitting your feedback through the NPS public comment link.

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