As folks know KT made a renewed commitment to our landowners and community to expand our already existing Ambassador program. This re-envisioned program hosts 12 Ambassadors, including a new ‘Head Ambassador” with the goal to increase trail user engagement and education, sharing Ride With Gratitude, Leave No Trace policies, inform users they are on private property and to be respectful. Ambassadors are stationed at key trailheads and parking areas, on foot and bike, making strategic rounds throughout the network holding trail users accountable. We are truly grateful for our Ambassador’s time and energy, serving our community.
Whit Rutherfurd, our Head Ambassador, has been an incredible addition to our team. His exceptional leadership dedicated to the program has supported better organization and management. Here is a sneak peak into Whit’s weekend as he creates a summary report every Monday morning to share with the KT Team so we know where to direct our efforts and education based on the observations he and his team experience. Thank you Whit!
Ambassador Report August 6-8, 2021
Beautiful weather this weekend with highs in the 80's. It was a bit muggy with plenty of sunshine!
Busiest Saturday Yet?
This weekend saw large crowds that were well spread across the network. Saturday seemed especially busy and by 11 am both VSS Trailside and Moosehaven parking areas were at capacity. Ambassadors stationed there had to turn away visitors arriving during that time. While the Tiki bar lot got close to filling (95%-ish) it began to self-regulate by 12:30.
TrailHUB
I communicated with the ambassadors to alert me when the parking areas were nearing their capacity. At that point, I put notices on
TrailHUB
as we are experimenting with the Capacity Study’s recommendation to have an integrated phone app that includes an interactive map with parking space availability.
This process is extremely easy and can be done in under a minute! As the website is only useful for the people that visit it, I have been asking Welcome Center staff and Ambassadors to spread the good word about TrailHUB to our visitors anytime the opportunity presents itself. Now that we have practiced using the parking aspect of this app I wonder how we can drum up further interest and awareness of the new TrailHUB and it’s parking feature?!?!? Did someone say more awkward videos!
We've found that Trailhub is a great platform because it's a website that can be bookmarked on your phone home screen rather than an app that needs to be downloaded. People that do use it seem to like it because they can create an account if they want- but it's not necessary. We do like to encourage people to go ahead and create an account as they can then customize the trail networks to get notifications when we send them out- which is only when necessary.
Construction, Congestion
As the E. Darling Hill Rd project continues to progress, I am simply shocked to see how many cyclists continue to climb the road instead of utilizing the singletrack. In fact, more than once I observed families (with small children) climbing in the left-hand lane (wrong side of the road) on the blind curve uphill of the trailhead and downhill of Garden Drive!!! This is a dangerous scenario and both times I witnessed this, I stopped the Truck and asked people to use the singletrack or at least use the correct side of the road.
I have begun to not only ask myself why but now, ask the visitors why they are climbing the road instead of the trail. The responses I often get are: that the road is faster or that the trail is too steep for new riders. I also suspect that the trailhead signs get “tuned out” with all the other commotion of the construction. I have instructed staff to focus on educating cyclists to the advantage of using the single track as opposed to the road under construction. I did observe what seemed like some locals getting impatient with the traffic on Darling Hill Rd. Speeding, revving their engines, and general grumpiness. Between the construction and a large number of cyclists on the road, there is a certain amount of patience required to navigate in a vehicle on Darling Hill on a busy weekend. Perhaps it was the heat in addition to the larger crowds, but I did observe that this patience is wearing thin in my travels.
People Visiting for the first time since '19
Recently there seems to be an uptick in visitors telling us that they are back for the first time since 2019. I think that this is the contingency of families that arrive once a year for a vacation in August. We have noticed less resistance to buying memberships online possibly because at this point in the pandemic people are conditioned to doing so. In fact, this weekend we had a few visitors note how user-friendly it was to purchase memberships on our website. Hooray!!!!
Pinkham Rd, Victory Rd
With this uptick of visitors returning for the first time since 2019, we have started to see a few more people parked on Pinkham Road, Victory, and Flower Brook Road where they should NOT BE. I was fortunate to catch many of these folks this past weekend before they left their vehicles and give them info on the many parking opportunities available on our map.
Village Sports Trailside
Friday I was able to install a large QR code membership board at the kiosk on the VSS parking area. I spoke with The Hub owner Carrie about the additional sign (for which she was grateful) and followed up with her a bit about how the waiver isn't required to be completed before membership purchase because the waiver language is included to the purchase.
Saturday after the VSS lot had cleared out a bit I was able to have a good talk with VSS owner Chris. He was appreciative that we have an ambassador staffed there during peak times. He and I both remarked how it felt good to be busy for once, yet glad that it wasn't crazy busy.
Big loop, little H20
While spending a short time at the Moosehaven tent, I encountered quite a few people inquiring about where they could find drinking water. It seems that they had assumed that there would be some water source available there. These riders had left from E. Burke and were in the middle of the big loop. I consulted the other ambassadors and they in fact confirmed that this is a continuing trend. I have started to tell Welcome Center staff to casually mention the lack of water on the big loop when mapping this route. May this info. could be added to our map next year, where water fill locations are available around the network?
The Ambassadors did a tremendous job this weekend despite being a bit short-staffed. We had many great interactions with the visitors and community members, giving routes and educating them about the Ride With Gratitude principles. It's always a great experience to meet someone, give them mapping advice, and then see them later and have them thank us for the recommendations.
See ya on the trails next weekend!
Whit
KT Head Ambassador
