PROCESS

The Skowhegan Trails Plan is a collaborative vision that includes many partners’ input and guidance. OSI helped the Skowhegan community coalesce around a shared plan for trail development locally with additional professional recommendations. The project included four distinct tasks: background and desktop work, stakeholder engagement, fieldwork, and reporting. To begin, MSS and OSI met to define broad goals, create a list of stakeholders, and identify
areas of interest. Project goals are discussed in depth below. MSS and OSI cast a wide net for engagement to ensure the community was well represented and informed throughout the process.

Stakeholders range from landowners and managers to the public. A comprehensive list of partners is included below. OSI assisted with a geospatial information systems (GIS) analysis of open and conserved space in the Skowhegan area to locate areas of interest, which in turn helped inform stakeholder inclusion. The engagement is iterative and ongoing, with initial in person meetings helping partners develop a working relationship and discuss the project process. Later video calls updated partners on field findings and recommendations, and allowed for more feedback and collaboration. Additionally, OSI helped facilitate a trail user group meeting and two public input and information sessions.

Beyond GIS open space analysis, OSI researched environmental and hydrologic resources, permitting and compliance constraints, topography and slopes, soils, and existing trails. Utilizing GIS, OSI was able to analyze the data for contemporary trail development feasibility that met the community’s needs and goals, leading to more efficient fieldwork and a more defined plan.

PROJECT GOALS

Project goals are broad guiding principles to help the partners and community continue to collaborate around the implementation of this plan. The project goals assisted the development of priorities near the end of this report. Project goals should be revisited as the plan is implemented over time.

Connect Trail Systems and Downtown
Connectivity is a priority for community trail development. Connectivity often means people have more options to recreate how they wish, whether that is visiting a new trail system each week or tying them all together in an epic outing. Connectivity also provides new and desirable options for car-free travel. Skowhegan joins many towns and cities across the country looking at how to provide their residents with better bicycle and pedestrian transportation opportunities.

Connectivity was an early objective in stakeholder discussions, and later public engagement gatherings strengthened the call for better connections between key places in and around Skowhegan. The highest priority connections identified by partners were between the existing trail systems themselves and downtown. In combination with the VPI work, the two plans lay out a proposed downtown Skowhegan hub that spokes out to miles of trails in a variety of natural settings.

Locals and visitors would both benefit from increased access to existing trails. Many of Skowhegan’s residents live close to downtown in a denser urban area. Some of the area parks and trails are inaccessible to people, especially children, on foot or bike due to distance or lack of safe routes. The natural surface trails planned around Skowhegan will provide important recreational facilities that are within walking or biking distance of many neighborhoods. Ensuring residents can safely access trails without the need of a car or parking is vital to creating a resilient trails community.

Skowhegan, like many older towns across the country, does not have a modern active transportation network that allows safe off-road transit opportunities. Access and transportation are issues for some locals who travel car-free. More recreational opportunities are needed for area youth that are within walking or biking distance of where they live and go to school

The plan’s recommendations outline trail improvements close to home, within the densely- populated areas. The plan also details connectivity needs between these trail systems and important places such as schools, downtown, and residential areas.

Improve Accessibility and New User Experiences
Skowhegan is currently home to nearly 30 miles of trails. In conversations with partners and the community, many feel the existing trails are more difficult than desired by most users. Lack of signage, reuse of extraction routes (old logging roads), and primitive construction techniques all lead to trails that aren’t effective at welcoming users and making them feel comfortable.

While Maine and Skowhegan are home to many people who feel at home on an unmarked, faint, or undiscernible trail, there are many more people who need reassurance and easier access. Like many towns in New England, Skowhegan’s existing trails were created with older design and construction techniques that focused on using old extraction routes like skidder paths. Skidder paths were developed to remove timber from the forest, not for recreation, therefore they often lack the necessary improvements to withstand high use.

While primitive trails may appear to be lower impact on the natural environment, they are often poorly sited and do not utilize best practices. These types of undeveloped trails are frequently too steep to adequately drain water and prevent erosion. Additionally, these less-developed trails wear quickly, exposing more roots and rocks. Rough tread conditions impede travel by many, including mobility challenged individuals and children.

One of the common themes from land managers and the community is a strong desire for more accessible and welcoming trail experiences around Skowhegan. Creating trails with low barriers to entry, both physical and mental, will allow more visitors to gain the benefits of trail use. Additionally, when well-designed and built trails are implemented in a system, the carrying capacity of the entire trail network and land increases without increased impacts. By improving trails for new user experiences, Skowhegan can begin to build a larger, stronger, and more robust trails community. Spreading the benefits of trails to everybody and creating a more resilient pool of stakeholders and volunteers strengthens the community.

Diversify Experiences to Attract New Support
Many of the existing trails around Skowhegan offer similar experiences. Trail experiences are derived from the landscape, setting, and most-often, the trail itself. Visitors primarily interact with the trail physically through the tread and mentally through visual and auditory engagement in the trail corridor and surrounding landscape. Since we cannot alter the entire landscape, and since most direct interaction is with the trail tread and corridor, diversifying trail experiences relies on creating different trail types, styles, and difficulties.

All the existing trails in Skowhegan were designed and built for pedestrians. One way to diversify trails is designing and building shared-use trails for other users such as mountain bikers, equestrians, and skiers. These trails would utilize layout and features appropriate for bikes, horses, or skis. For instance, trails designed for mountain biking feature gentle grades and wide turns, which often result in achieving more accessibility.

The existing trails are generally primitive and often the skill level required to use them is intermediate or advanced. Creating more beginner friendly trails opens more access and diversifies experiences. Building more developed trails, with fully excavated and graded treads, will allow creativity in trail character and create more easily maintainable trails.

This trail plan identifies many different trail systems. The recommendations detail how these different networks can provide unique experiences that differ from the others. Diversifying the trail experiences across Skowhegan will draw more trail users and open more opportunities for locals beyond those who enjoy primitive, difficult, hiking trails.

Increase Mileage to Create a Regional Destination
One of the leading goals from the onset of the project was to create 50 miles of trail around Skowhegan. This visionary number was an even mileage that many partners felt elevated Skowhegan trails from community-only to a regional destination. The existing trail mileage in the Skowhegan area is just over 28 miles.

While the partners are focused on creating a valuable and enjoyable community asset, the ongoing work to make Skowhegan an outdoor destination requires certain trail infrastructure to succeed. Namely, destination trail systems need enough mileage to draw people from a few hours to a day’s drive away. With the growing mountain bike scene in Maine, many riders are excited to travel and explore new areas. Skowhegan’s proximity to the population centers of Maine and to I-95 make it an excellent choice for increased trail development.

The VPI and River Park projects will help create a more accessible and enjoyable downtown with a unique outdoor facility that will draw people from across New England. Complementing these projects with a trail plan that outlines destination-focused improvements will help everybody triumph.

This plan outlines almost 64 miles of trails including improving existing trails and creating new ones. Additionally, the goals of improved accessibility and diversifying experiences will help bolster Skowhegan’s destination trail presence.