Welcome to The Blue Trails Guide

The Blue Trails Guide by American Rivers provides step-by-step instructions for developing thriving blue trails, the water equivalent to hiking trails, in your community.

To have a successful blue trail you need to have a healthy river, which is why this guide focuses on river conservation. You will find practical advice on planning, building, and managing for conservation and case studies from experts across the country.

This online guide will help your community protect and restore your rivers and landscapes through recreation.

Blue Trails Photos

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American Rivers' Vision

Blue trails have the incredible potential to stimulate local economies, encourage physical activity, improve community pride, and make rivers and communities healthier.

Communities across the country are beginning to plan for conservation when creating new and improving existing blue trails by organizing trash cleanups, improving access and navigability by removing dams that no longer make sense, securing more natural flows, protecting against poorly planned development along blue trails - the list goes on.

American Rivers is helping communities do this by providing tools to promote river-based recreation.

By planning for these improvements, communities will reap the benefits of greater recreational opportunities and healthier rivers now and for years to come.

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.

His devotion for water trails was present even in his final days when he transferred to American Rivers the infrastructure and materials needed to expand his work of reconnecting people to their rivers.

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.