AMC Professional Trail Crew resurface a section of the new Cardigan All Persons Trail. Photo by Corey David Photography.
It’s a perfect summer day in New Hampshire. The trails are dry, and the skies are clear. A walk down any trail could be the start of a new adventure. For outdoor enthusiasts with disabilities, it’s a feeling that can be hard to come by.
Trails designed for wheelchairs and people with varying abilities are few and far between. Information about safety and accessibility features is often limited. And with changing conditions, a trail could be safe one day and unmanageable the next.
The lack of accessible paths could be keeping millions of people from experiencing the outdoors. More than one-in-ten Americans have impaired mobility to the point of “serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs,” according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. An outing in nature for these people can be difficult.
In recent years, trail builders have stepped up to the challenge of designing trails that are more universally accessible to all users.
“What is happening in the trail industry overall is that there is a really big push toward all access trail [building],” says AMC Trail Crew Field Supervisor Ellie Pelletier.
Pelletier is at the forefront of just such a trail project. In 2022, AMC’s Professional Trail Crew began constructing a new All Persons Trail (APT) at AMC Cardigan Lodge, on New Hampshire’s Cardigan Mountain. Once completed, the trail will be a one-mile loop that’s accessible to wheelchairs, hikers with walkers, strollers, and more. As the name suggests, it will be a trail for everyone.
As project manager of the Cardigan APT, Pelletier juggles the complex logistics of trail building and oversees both professional trail crews and AMC volunteers. AMC staff and volunteers worked more than 3,400 combined hours on the Cardigan APT in 2022. In 2023, they plan to finish the job.
Support the critical work of AMC’s Trail Crews, who repair, reconstruct, and repair our region’s trails.
Before and after photos from a section of the trail. Photos courtesy of Ellie Pelletier.
A Trail for Everyone
The Cardigan All Persons Trail was the vision of the late Andrew Norkin, former AMC Director of Trails.
Norkin developed a rough plan to convert a trail section near Cardigan Lodge, known as the Upper Nature Trail, into an all-access path. Tragically, Norkin passed away from cancer in 2021 before construction could begin. The AMC New Hampshire Chapter Trails Committee began internally fundraising for the project. Meanwhile, Norkin’s successor, Alexander DeLucia, won a major grant from the New Hampshire Recreational Trails Program. With funding secured, AMC broke ground in May 2022.
According to Pelletier, the reasons for selecting the Upper Nature Trail as the site for an All Persons Trail were clear.
“When we started, [the Upper Nature Trail] was close to the grades that it needed to be for an all-access trail. So, it’s an easy conversion with a little bit of rerouting.”
That’s not to say construction has always been as simple as Pelletier makes it sound. Trail work is physically demanding and requires extensive skill training. Staff also began work on the project four weeks later than expected due to a funding delay. Despite this setback, Pelletier and her team were able to complete more than half of the trail surface in 2022’s summer season.
AMC Director of Trails Alexander DeLucia works on a new accessible bridge. Photo by Corey David Photography.
A Trail Crew member unloads surfacing material. Photo by Corey David Photography.
The Construction Process
The Cardigan All Persons Trail is being built based on U.S. Forest Service Accessibility Guidelines for Recreational Trails, including grade, width, and surfacing requirements.
To level the Cardigan All Person Trail’s surface, staff ran an excavator over the trail, removing about six inches of leaf and organic matter. They then filled the space with a surfacing material, dirt berms, and crushed stone. The new surface offers a hard and stable platform that’s easier for individuals of all abilities to use. In 2022, Trail Staff used 264 tons of surfacing material and 168 tons of crushed stone.
In three places on the trail, staff and volunteers dismantled existing, inaccessible bridges with new 25-foot bridges and ramps. Workers also installed four closed culverts and 143 linear feet of drainage to help water pass beneath the trail. This will keep the path dry and easier for individuals of all abilities to use. More will be needed in 2023.
Another focus is the trail’s grade, or steepness. Universal access trails don’t need to be completely flat. But, according to Pelletier, they are required to have pullouts (rest areas) at set distances from each other, depending on how steep a trail section is.
“One [accessibility] qualification is that nowhere on the trail can it be more than a 12% grade. But then it goes down from there in stages. Something that’s a 10 to 12% grade, you can have on the trail. But it requires a pullout every 10 feet… Anywhere from 8 to 10% grade has [a pullout] every 30 feet. Anything below 5%, you know you can go forever, and it’s considered accessible.”
At the end of the construction, Pelletier will use a smart level, clinometer, and measuring wheel to measure the grade across the trail. This will be used to create signage that describes the features of the trail and allows hikers to “make their own determination on whether or not they feel like they’ll be able to use this trail,” says Pelletier.
AMC New Hampshire Chapter volunteer Frank Miller works with AMC staff. Photo courtesy of Frank Miller.
Team Effort
A key feature of work on the Cardigan All Persons Trail, and many other AMC trail projects, is the collaboration between professional trail staff and volunteers. While some tools, like the mini excavators and motorized wheelbarrows, are reserved for the pros, volunteers take responsibility for some of the most important jobs on the project. This independence is because of Pelletier’s trust in the volunteers, many of whom have years of trail experience. It’s also a quirk of scheduling.
“The most convenient time for a volunteer to work is really the weekend. And the least convenient time for the professional trail crew to work is the weekend,” Pelletier says with a chuckle.
Some of the primary responsibilities of the volunteers have included taking apart the old bridges and hauling out the old material, clearing small vegetation from sections and attaching the railings onto the new bridges.
There’s still a lot of work ahead on the Cardigan All Persons Trail. AMC staff hopes to have it completed in the Fall of 2023. The trail, however, could be just the start of a push for accessible options. AMC is constructing another all-access trail at AMC Noble View Outdoor Center. Pelletier sees it as part of an industry-wide shift towards inclusivity on recreational trails.
“There’s more opportunity for trail organizations such as AMC to be able to get the skill level required to build these [All Person] trails.”
Support the critical work of AMC’s Trail Crews, who repair, reconstruct, and repair our region’s trails.
AMC’s Professional Trail Crew on the job. Photo by Corey David Photography.