Diving Deeper into the 2021 Trail Survey: The Impact of Non-Trail-Related Events on Trail Use
Ketchum and the Wood River Valley is widely known for its abundance of outdoor recreation opportunities and access to public lands, but that’s not all there is to do in the summer season. There is an abundance of festivals, fairs, speaker series, and other events that attract folks from all over the region and even the country, with all sorts of different interests and ideas to share. Most of these events take place in Ketchum’s town square, along Main Street, or within the reaches of Sun Valley Resort’s stunning grounds and facilities.
If someone was trying to be strategic about avoiding the crowds during these events, they might think to avoid downtown areas at all costs and head to some of the Ketchum Ranger District Trails, most of which are not accessible from town on foot, and only a handful on bike. Our infrared trail counter data from WRTC’s 2021 Trail Survey, though, tells a surprising story about the impact of local events - unrelated to trail activities - on the traffic we see out on our trails.
Take June 27th, for example. This weekend was the date of the Sun Valley REVEL Marathon, which took place on Highway 75 from Galena Summit to the Hemingway School in Ketchum. Road racers and their supporters made up most of the visitors that weekend, and so we were very surprised to see how much use spiked on the 27th at Norton Lakes. Take a look at the graph below:
No other date of data collection at Norton Lakes even comes close to June 27th, with over 603 “passes” occurring in front of the trail counter in a 6 hour period. While visitors to the Wood River Valley that weekend may have had the REVEL Marathon in mind as their destination activity, it appears that they brought their trail-running shoes as well.
Another example occurred on October 10th, the final day of the legendary Trailing of the Sheep Festival. The final day of the Festival holds the much-anticipated “Trailing” event itself, where thousands of sheep are led down Main Street in Ketchum as a celebration of herding livelihoods, Wood River Valley history, and unique Basque culture. Again, though, we see that an event very unrelated to recreational trail use can result in some big spikes in trail traffic.
This graph shows daily trail traffic for the Lake Creek infrared trail counter we had installed for the majority of the summer trail use season. As you can see on the far right, trail counter “passes” spike to 350, the highest we recorded throughout our 2021 Trail Survey project. Now take a look at the hourly trail counter data for that day:
We see a typical mid-morning spike, but then use quickly drops off from 11:00AM-2:00PM. Things pick back up again and remaiHn “steady and heavy” until around 6:00PM. These time frames align quite well with the trailing event down Main Street.
The takeaways from this data? While outdoor recreation is often cited as “A way of life” in the Wood River Valley, it is also influenced by a multitude of other “ways of life”. We are a vibrant community with many interests, backgrounds, and values - and that is awesome! Secondly, there is an argument to be made about just how top-notch our trails are, and how they can attract users who didn’t necessarily plan their visit with trail recreation in mind. This speaks to not only the fantastic work of all of the different agencies and trail managers here in the Valley, but also to the time and effort our community puts forth in stewarding our trails. Thank you for your trail work, picking up after your dog, and modeling positive trail etiquette out there on the trails. Your actions are helping to provide new and exciting experiences to all sorts of visitors, showing the world some of the best the Wood River Valley has to offer!
To read more about the Trail Use Survey click HERE.