Trails for Illinois - Every home a trailhead!

Millennium Reserve Tour with National Park Service director Jon Jarvis, a set on Flickr.
Before you read further: GITy Up! registration closes June 30. Get it done! Enjoyed touring the IDNR’s Millennium Reserve projects with National Park Service director Jon Jarvis yesterday. Jon’s a lifer NPS employee who’s had nearly every job with the agency: he’s cut trail, led visitor tours, been a park biologist, fought forest fires and dragged tires out of creeks. You want him to be in charge of America’s best idea. Jon’s been touring projects included in the president’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative. One of them is also in the Millennium Reserve: the Cal-Sag Trail. NPS Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance coordinator Diane Banta invited me along to talk to Jon about it.
He’s a trails guy all the way through, knows well how transformative they can be and how dang hard to get built. On both counts, Jon recognizes that the Cal-Sag Trail is a phenomenon: the transformation of the Cal-Sag corridor will be game changing. And the speed of its development is unheard of in Illinois—the Cal-Sag Trail Coalition’s first meeting was Fall of 2004. If construction dollars come through Enhancements or TIGER, ribbon cutting could be Fall 2013. Enjoy the pics! And the puppies!

Orienteering. NPS director Jon Jarvis in the navy sportcoat

Jerry Adelmann explaining why a port authority owns a golf course

The port authority's understandably touchy about the golf course

Jon Jarvis (from right), IDNR's Diane Tecic, Openlands' Jerry Adelmann, and Chicago Park District's Zhanna Yermakov at Big Marsh.

Millennium Reserve Tour with National Park Service director Jon Jarvis, a set on Flickr.

Before you read further: GITy Up! registration closes June 30. Get it done!

Enjoyed touring the IDNR’s Millennium Reserve projects with National Park Service director Jon Jarvis yesterday. Jon’s a lifer NPS employee who’s had nearly every job with the agency: he’s cut trail, led visitor tours, been a park biologist, fought forest fires and dragged tires out of creeks. You want him to be in charge of America’s best idea.

Jon’s been touring projects included in the president’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative. One of them is also in the Millennium Reserve: the Cal-Sag Trail. NPS Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance coordinator Diane Banta invited me along to talk to Jon about it.

He’s a trails guy all the way through, knows well how transformative they can be and how dang hard to get built. On both counts, Jon recognizes that the Cal-Sag Trail is a phenomenon: the transformation of the Cal-Sag corridor will be game changing. And the speed of its development is unheard of in Illinois—the Cal-Sag Trail Coalition’s first meeting was Fall of 2004. If construction dollars come through Enhancements or TIGER, ribbon cutting could be Fall 2013.

Enjoy the pics! And the puppies!