Welcome to The Blue Trails Guide

The Blue Trails Guide provides step-by-step instructions for developing a thriving blue trail in your community.

A blue trail is a dedicated stretch of river that enjoys special clean water safeguards and is a destination for fishing, boating, and other recreation. Blue trails, like hiking trails, help people discover rivers and provide a connection between urban and rural communities and the great outdoors. Blue trails provide a fun and exciting way to get youth outdoors and are economic drivers benefiting local businesses and quality of life.

This online guide will help your community discover, protect, and connect to the great outdoors through river restoration, protection, and recreation.

Blue Trails Photos

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American Rivers' Vision

Blue trails offer a perfect opportunity for children and adults alike to discover the natural world. They connect communities with each other and with America's trasured landscapes.

Blue trails provide a natural linkage between communities and the outdoors, rural and urban areas, developed areas and national treasures such as parks, refuges, and forests both upstream and down.

They also help connect us to our families by providing safe and healthy recreation and environmental education opportunities for people of all ages.

These experiences help connect us to special protected areas and build partnerships and support for the conservation of these special places. And with nearly every American living within one mile of a river or stream, the potential for blue trails is limitless.

Tribute to Al Staats

This guide is dedicated to Al Staats. A visionary, Al saw that one of the best ways to protect and restore rivers is to grow the constituency caring for them through recreational enjoyment. 

Al started the important work of providing practical advice on how to create water trails when founding North American Water Trails in 1999. We are grateful for Al’s legacy and dream of healthy rivers for generations to enjoy.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the experts who contributed their time to this guide:

Daniel Chapin, Mary Crockett, Andrew Fahlund, Peter Gudritz, Lisa Gutierrez, Peter Hark, Nate Hoogeveen, Amy Kober, Jennifer Lamphere, Brook Lenker, Bill Marshall, Matt Rice, Katie Roenker, Paul Sanford, Liz Sparks, Kate Williams, and Erik Wrede.