How we work for
your trails
Since our founding in 1990, GVLT has been instrumental in building and maintaining many of the trails our community enjoys every day-from Peets Hill to Drinking Horse Mountain, Snowfill Recreation Area to the Triple Tree Trail – and we have lots more planned.
There are a number of ways that GVLT works on the community trail system. Our biggest strength is our ability to bring diverse groups to work together toward a long-range vision for our community trails. As a nonprofit, we can be nimble to seize land acquisitions, funding, and partnership opportunities. The variety of ways that we work allows us to address needs in all parts of the trail system, ensuring new access, safety, and excellent user experiences.
Facilitate
Our unique role as a catalyzer allows us to bring public and private organizations to the table to discuss the long range vision for our community trails. By having these discussions, we can create strategies and plans that cross jurisdictions. Having a seat at the table with community leaders ensures that trails for recreation and transportation remain a high priority and that they are thoughtfully designed with a comprehensive vision in mind.
Build
GVLT is involved in all stages of the trail building process, including the design, funding, and construction. From our collaborations with our partners about the long-range plan for community trails, GVLT identifies priority projects that relate to safety, new access, expanded access, and user experience. As a nonprofit, we can privately fundraise both individual donations and grant funding to cover the project costs like design, permitting, engineering, and construction. We then manage the project start to finish.
Enhance
Our vision for the trail system prioritizes not only access, but positive trail experiences for our neighbors. That’s why we invest in improvements and infrastructure to enhance existing trails. Some of our common improvement projects include bridges, benches, signage, climbing boulders, public bathrooms, playgrounds, and parking lots. We also invest in outreach such as trail maps, the Trail Ambassador program, and Discovery Walks to ensure that all people have a fun and safe time exploring our trails.
Maintain
We use hundreds of volunteers every year to help maintain the trails and keep them safe. We complete projects like fencing, weed removal, gravel resurfacing, drainage improvements, brushing, trail rerouting, signage installation, and more.