PTBA presented the 2007 Harvey Bell Award to the Civilian Conservation Corps. Accepting this award on behalf of the CCC, were Bob Robeson and Walt Bailey. These men were recommended by Walter Atwood, Current president of the National Association of Civilian Conservation Corps Alumni.

Since there was no work in '34,

I went and joined the CC Corps...

The work was hard, I must agree,

But it sure made a man of me.

In four years I traveled far,

I owe it all to the great FDR...

He took many fellows off the street,

And put the country back on its feet...

(From a poem by Ed McCann, CCC veteran)

CCC workers performed over 100 types of work, from planting trees (over three billion) to building parks (more than 800 nationwide) to developing over 28,000 miles of hiking trails. They also saved 20 million acres from soil erosion, built 47,000 bridges and installed over 5,000 miles of water supply lines. The accomplishments of the program seem endless.

Some of the specific accomplishments of the Corps during its existence included 3,470 fire towers erected, 97,000 miles of fire roads built, 4,235,000 man-days devoted to fighting fires, and more than three billion trees planted. Five hundred camps were under the control of the Soil Conservation Service, performing erosion control. Erosion was ultimately arrested on more than twenty million acres. The CCC made outstanding contributions in the development of recreational facilities in national, state, county and metropolitan parks.

Each man in the CCC was paid $30 and had to send home $25 of that to their families. Many times, the $25 was the only income the family had. The CCC pioneered many of the conservation techniques used today.  They did a lot of timber management. They truly started what we’re doing today.  The CCC impact across the US is measured by the structures still standing and the stories of the ones that have passed.

	Photo by Woody Keen

PTBA presented the 2006 Harvey Bell Award to the Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crew. Celebrating its tenth year on the road, a partnership between Subaru of America and the International Mountain Bicycling Association continues to bring trail education to volunteers and land managers around the country. Willing and resilient couples have been packing all their earthly belongings into Subaru Outbacks to embark on a collective trailbuilding odyssey that has now:

• Spanned over 1,000,000 miles on America’s highways and byways;
• Empowered over 35,000 volunteers;
• Led almost 1,000 weekend-long trailbuilding seminars; and
• Built over 200 miles of trails on America’s public lands.

While the statistics are impressive, the true worth of the program lies in what these educated volunteer groups have gone on to accomplish in their local parks, forests, deserts, and prairies.  Subaru and IMBA are very proud of this joint commitment to the outdoors and are celebrating by renewing the program to bring more capacity to the trails community in years to come.

On top of the work that Subaru/IMBA Trail Care Crews have done in the past and continue to do in the future, the program has also spawned IMBA’s professional trail contracting program, Trail Solutions.  Almost every Trail Solutions employee has spent two years traveling the country, teaching trails.  This brings a comprehensive understanding of trail and soil conditions under differing trail use matrices that has allowed the Trail Solutions program to grow from two to 10 staff over the last four years.

	From left: Roger Bell, Bob Steinholtz and Gerry Wilbour at the 2003 Western Trailbuilders Association conference on February 12, 2003.
	"Highest Bridge in Texas," Guadalupe Mountain.

WTBA presented the 2003 Harvey Bell Award to Bob Steinholtz for his long career in advancing trail design on all fronts and especially in rustic yet sustainable bridges and wet area crossings.

Bob is a Landscape Architect formerly with the central design office of the National Park Service. Prior to working for NPS, his experience involved preparing plans and specifications for site work for major construction projects, the design of a four-mile cross country ski trail, and a few "nature trails.

His first trail project for the park service was a stock trail to the summit of 8,750' Guadalupe Peak, the highest peak in Texas. The trail required a bridge in a cliff at 8,200', probably the highest bridge in the state. The entire trail program was for a 90-mile trail system to be built by competitive bid contracts.

Applying the design principles of Landscape Architecture to trail design is a departure from the typical mechanical design of trails. Previously, most trail design used maximum trail grades and minimal construction to lay out the shortest route between two points. Little thought was given to the aesthetic points of interest along the way. Trails can incorporate points of interest to appeal to our Five Senses, although it may be impossible to design one trail that appeals to all five.

The park service had no experience with trail building contracts, so Bob developed "Plan and Profile" sheets similar to that used for road construction. The profile showed the ups and downs of the trail, the trail grade, and the change in elevation from one end of the trail to the other. Trail construction details were drawn and specifications prepared.

While working for the park service, Bob designed a total of 250 miles of trails and trail-related facilities, including the 17-mile Tanawah Trail at the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina which required almost one bridge per mile. In 1980, he organized a course in trail design and construction. Later, these weeklong sessions were held annually. When budgets were cut, he personally sponsored courses in the mountains of Colorado and New York. Participants came from as far as Maine, Georgia, California, Alaska and Canada. Unlike sessions run by federal agencies, participants were from state, county, and municipal agencies; ski areas; utilities; and federal agencies.

After leaving the park service in 1996, Bob started Bristlecone Trails, a trail consulting office. Bob has provided trail expertise in 24 states in terrain from deserts to wetlands to mountains, and most vegetation types. The US Forest Service has printed a manual on wetland trails for which Bob was the principal author.

A Lift Bridge for floating a park backhoe upstream twice a year. Jean Lafitte National Historic Site, Louisiana.		Arch Bridge spans Boone Fork, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina.

Where is the edge protection? Core Team members Don Beers (left), Phyllis Cangemi, and Barry Atwood examine a downed tree placed and secured by rebar to serve as edge protection needed in some locations to keep some hikers from “tracking” off the trail.

The Trail Design Charette is a multidisciplinary design synergy effort, the result of a partnership between Whole Access and California State Parks, together with the Humboldt Access Project Independent Living Center, BLM, and others. The Charette team is developing and testing a planning and design process that integrates accessibility, resource protection, and trail construction technology into the planning, design and development of recreational trails worldwide—and to share this process via videotapes and other training materials.

The Design Charette has completed two trails in redwood forests in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in California. By intention, the accessible trails don’t look like accessible trails. The designers, many of whom are involved in the national determination of ADA trail specifications, pushed the envelope to create highly naturalistic trails that feel like they “just happen” to be accessible—even on steep cross slopes and with occasionally steep trail grades. As a result, the two trails are beautifully woven into their sites. Instead of the sometimes sterile feel of accessible trails, everyone appreciates how skillfully the Charette’s trails uses nature itself to focus our attention on the natural world rather than on the trail.

PTBA awarded its 2002 Harvey Bell Award to the Design Charrette of northern California represented by Don Beers, California State Parks (center) and Phyllis Cangemi, Whole Access (right). The award was presented by PTBA Board member Roger Bell (left).

The two trails were developed as a model, but the charrette process was intended from the start to be generic enough that it can be applied to all trails regardless of their environmental conditions and ecological setting. The development of this process is now being documented via videotape and a written manual so that it can be used as a training guide for others improving the trail accessibility in trail systems worldwide.

For more information and project updates, visit the Design Charrette website at www.wholeaccess.org/charrette/.

At its annual conference in Reno, Nevada, on Feb. 7, 2001, the Western Trailbuilders Association presented the first annual Harvey Bell Memorial Award to The Greenway Collaborative for excellence in trail design.

The award was accepted by three members of the design team who have provided countless hours of expert volunteer assistance to re-conceiving how people will experience the Grand Canyon.

Those present to accept the award were Jeff Olson, a trail planner from New York and recently the administrator of Millennium Trails who first conceived the Greenway Collaborative, Peter Axelson of Beneficial Designs who provided design guides for disability access, and Robert Searns, an architect from Urban Edges of Denver, Colorado who is now the project developer.

Searns was the featured banquet speaker and told the assembled group about the rationale for their efforts which will dramatically reduce the automobile impact upon the canyon, emphasizing instead some 72 miles of trails for bicycle, hiking and bus access.

From left: Roger Bell, Jeff Olson, Peter Axelson, Donald Hays, and Robert Searns at the 2001 Western Trailbuilders Association conference on February 7, 2001.

The team, at work for nearly seven years and who may see the first on ground construction during 2001, includes a rich mix of professionals from outside and inside the National Park Service. They have raised over two million dollars to date from government, corporate, and individual sources and will incorporate volunteer participation by youth groups, possibly with expert help from members of the Association.

The Western Trailbuilders Association is made up of over 30 contractors who specialize in trails. The organization has been in existence for about 25 years and meets annually in Reno with various Government agencies, such as the US Forest Service, who use the services of contractors to build trails.

This award also recognizes the contributions of one of its founding members who had been fiercely committed to excellence in trail design. Harvey Bell, truly an unforgettable character, was represented by his brother, Roger Bell, also a California trail contractor and currently Vice-Chair of American Trails.

Bell, in introducing Bob Searns, said the Association was recognizing the groundbreaking work of The Greenway Collaborative because they were, with the Grand Canyon project and others, “positively altering the face of trail design forever.”

A similar design concept is proposed for Yosemite National Park, and members of the team have creatively influenced greenway design in urban centers and front-country trail systems from Denver to San Antonio.

Searns, a major contributor to three books on greenway design and also a board member of American Trails, told the group that good trails were an antidote to technical overload in the information age. In this age, leisure activity tends to mirror the demands of work culture so that “even places like the Grand Canyon are now packaged tour bus photo-ops and not places that fully engage the whole body, mind and spirit.”

Instead, he envisions trails, open spaces and greenways, whether in wilderness parks or near urban centers, as “vital infrastructure that can become part of our daily lives.” Well-designed trails could truly engage the present moment and provide a sense of place, thereby becoming “a chord that resonates the soul.”