Amplifying Voices Across Our Community

Everyone deserves access to trails. We're supporting community partners and breaking down barriers, so that the trails of the future belong to everyone. And by amplifying voices from across the trail community and sharing stories, we can help people know we all belong in the outdoors.

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Gear up for learning: Transformative bikepacking trips for Olympia teens

Jul 09, 2024

The Avanti Bikes! program offers immersive educational experiences centered around bicycle education, safety, and community engagement. With the support of WTA, the program has also organized bikepacking trips to create hands-on learning opportunities, foster teamwork and promote environmental awareness.

A bounty of seaweed: How foraging can connect us to ancestral food practices and trails

A foraging trip offered a connection to the land and sea — and my own and other cultures. By Riley Collins

A public school science outdoors program to inspire

Lincoln High School in Tacoma is proving the hypothesis that an outdoors science program can deliver on STEM, help students dream big and break down geographic, economic and social barriers to the outdoors. | by MJ Sampang

Outdoor educators who inspire: Whatcom Intergenerational High School

Jun 24, 2024

Science teacher Cameron Kolk on how place-based education that integrates Western and Indigenous ways of knowing can foster a stronger sense of student identity, community and lasting, trusting relationships.

Outdoor educators who inspire: Tacoma Online

Jun 19, 2024

Assistant Principal Ruth Schlattmann on why it's vital for all kids to have the opportunity to experience community, set goals and stretch their comfort zones with outdoor experiences, even when they go to school in a largely online environment.

Outdoor educators who inspire: Swiftwater Learning Center

Jun 12, 2024

Educator Michele Montgomery on how she uses hands-on learning and the outdoor classroom to share a sense of place and comfort and the outdoors. For high school students growing up in a recreation and tourism town at the foot of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, those lessons can lead to lifelong passions and potential future careers.

No Child Left Inside gets more kids outdoors than ever

May 28, 2024

WTA and our partners — Youth Experiential Training Institute, The Wilderness Society and others — succeeded in securing No Child Left Inside's highest level of funding to date from the state legislature. This investment of $7 million for grants from 2023-2025 is now funding 92 programs around the state, supporting tens of thousands of Washington’s youth in getting outdoors.

WTA's Emerging Leaders Program ends on a high note

May 16, 2024

"It has been fulfilling to see where ELP alumni interests propel them on their endeavors after completing this program."

What I learned from a year of (unintentional) Type 2 fun

A year of heartbreak and injury was not what I would have chosen. But as I healed, I learned a lot about how the barriers in life can be an important part of our path. By Martell Hesketh

How WTA’s Outdoor Leadership Training helped one teacher finally get outside with her students

Sara Ullmer led 24 outdoor trips with students from 2015-2019. Learn how WTA's Outdoor Leadership Training helped her get kids outside. By Krista Dooley

How Denice Rochelle and the Bronze Chapter Champion Diversity

I grew up in the outdoors — and I started The Bronze Chapter because I want more people of color to have that opportunity. By Denice Rochelle

WTA visits Washington, D.C., to ask for the funding trails and hikers need

Feb 20, 2024

WTA is advocating for Congress to pass the Transit to Trails Act, which would create a federal grant program to fund more public transportation to trailheads. More than 1,640 people have signed a WTA petition to express their support for this bill. Michael Decramer, WTA’s policy and planning manager, traveled to Washington, D.C., last week to deliver those petition signatures and to participate in the 27th annual Hike the Hill.

How an introductory backcountry work party helped one volunteer feel more comfortable backpacking

Feb 14, 2024

Jess Wolf had never been backpacking before signing up for a 3-day intro BCRT work party. Not only did she gain more trail work experience that weekend, but she left with the confidence to take on more backpacking trips afterward.

WTA welcomes 2024 Emerging Leaders in the outdoor industry

Jan 30, 2024

The fourth Emerging Leaders cohort is gearing up for 14 weeks of trail maintenance work and professional development, their schedules packed with on-the-ground field projects, meetings with local outdoor community members, professional workshops and more.

A WTA Work Party was a Life-Changing Trip for One Youth Volunteer

Dec 27, 2023

How one connection made on a youth volunteer vacation was life-changing for a young trail volunteer.

5 WTA Community Partners to Support this GivingTuesday

Nov 27, 2023

Washington Trails Association believes that trails are for everyone, forever. We seek to create a community of avid outdoor enthusiasts who love natural spaces. This year for Giving Tuesday, we are highlighting five community partners that are making waves, rewriting narratives in the outdoors and making sure everyone has access to connect with nature and experience joy in the outdoors. Please consider sharing your generosity with these community partner organizations.

Thank You, Community Leaders, for Getting Washington Outside!

Dec 21, 2023

2023 is the Outdoor Leadership Training program’s 10th Anniversary and it’s been a banner year! From all of us at WTA we want to say THANK YOU to the community of leaders from 68 organizations who have joined a workshop, planned, coordinated or led outdoor trips for their school or community this year.

Found in Trip Reports: Kindness, Rescue and a Community of People Helping Each Other

Nov 15, 2023

What does it look like when hikers help hikers? When we take care of trails and each other? These trip reports paint a picture of what's possible.

Celebrating 10 Years of Outdoor Leadership Training for the Next Generation

WTA is celebrating a major milestone in our Outdoor Leadership Training program. For a decade, we have been helping community leaders get outside with youth and families. By offering training, gear and resources, we have helped make more than 18,000 outdoor experiences possible. By Jessi Loerch and Rachel Wendling

10 years of Latino Outdoors — Building Diversity in the Outdoor Community

Diversity is good for the people who love to get outside and for the natural world we care about. By Luis Villa