America's National Recreation Trails

As a result of the National Trails Act of 1968, three categories of National Trails were created. The better known categories are National Scenic Trails (think Appalachian Trail), and National Historic Trails (Lewis and Clark Trail). Yet when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that Act, the largest number of trails envisioned was National Recreation Trails (NRTs).

Point One of the Trails Act seeks to provide a variety of outdoor recreation uses in or reasonably accessible to urban areas. Such trails are designated as National Recreation Trails. Each year several more trails are added to this category. To date, over 1000 trails have been noted as NRTs, providing over 11,000 miles of trail for recreation users. There are NRTs in each of the 50 United States ranging in length from less than one mile to the 485-mile Hatfield-McCoy Trail in West Virginia.

Unlike non-motorized National Scenic Trails (covered in a separate article), some NRTs may allow motorized recreation. Recreational uses may include the expected hiking, biking, and horseback riding, but may range to ATV use, dog-training, running, skiing, swimming, canoeing and kayaking, rollerblading, dog-sledding, big game hunting, scuba diving and snorkeling, rock climbing, snowboarding, and more. Not all uses are appropriate on all trails.

The way in which trails become NRTs is significantly different from the establishment of National Scenic or Historic Trails. Those trails may only be authorized by specific acts of Congress. However, NRTs are designated by the Secretary of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture. Existing trails use an application process to receive the NRT designation. Trails do not need to be on federal land to qualify.

Designation as an NRT gives a trail access to benefits such as training, funding opportunities, and increased publicity. Such trails are allowed to display the NRT logo.

National Recreation Trails are part of the mandate set forth in the 1991 document titled "Trails for All Americans." This set of goals was created by a task force known as the National Trails Agenda Project. One compelling concept from that report that has endured is the vision of a network of trails so accessible that "most Americans would live and work within 15 minutes of this system."

Forty trails were added to the NRT system on National Trails Day (June 2) 2007. The addition of all these trails was announced by Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorn. Oregon's Rich Guadagno Memorial Trail became the 1000th. Guadagno was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Refuge Manager who died aboard Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001. He previously managed the Baskett Slough in Oregon from 1990 to 1998. The 1.7-mile Rich Guadagno Memorial Trail passes through rare native oak savanna and upland prairie habitat, showcasing the habitats that Rich was dedicated to protect.

Because of the local nature of NRTs, very few of the names of these trails are familiar to large numbers of people. Perhaps a few of the better known ones are the 103-mile Pinhoti Trail of Alabama, the Arizona Grand Canyon North Kaibab Trail (14.2 miles), the Ozark Highlands Trail of Arkansas (140 miles), Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands Trail (70 miles), and Vermont's Long Trail (54 miles, and one of the oldest long distance hiking trails in our country) which are popular in hiking and backpacking circles.
The 220 miles of Minnesota's Superior Hiking Trail are designated as an NRT, and this trail is also poised to become part of the North Country National Scenic Trail.

A searchable database of the trails is available on line, and many of the trails have their own web sites.