TRAIL TREK CHALLENGE KICKS OFF WITH KIDS DISCOVERY CHALLENGES

Mississippi Valley Conservancy’s Trail Trek Challenge is a free, year-round hike/walk program at nature preserves protected by Mississippi Valley Conservancy. This year’s challenge officially kicks off Saturday morning so we caught up with Sarah Bratnober, Communications Director for the Mississippi Valley Conservancy, to learn more about the challenge and what’s new this year.

MVC will launch the Trail Trek Challenge 2021-2022 with a fun online event during Earth Fair at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 24th. They’ll share some great new features in the 2021-2022 Challenge, and hold their prize drawing for some lucky participants who sent in their hike log from 2020.

Join at that time on their Facebook page to learn all about it.

The first 100 people to sign up for the Trail Trek Challenge 2021-2022 will receive a free TTC bandana!

More info on the challenge from MVC:

Mississippi Valley Conservancy’s Year-Round Hike/Walk Program Offers More Family Fun With “Find Nature’s Treasures” For Every Trail

There’s more outdoor fun in store for hikers of all ages with the Trail Trek Challenge 2021-2022. The year-round hike/walk program at nature preserves protected by Mississippi Valley Conservancy will be launched with an online kick-off event that includes an overview with new program features and a prize drawing at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 24th. The first 100 people to sign up online, beginning on April 24th, will receive a Trail Trek Challenge bandana.

Participation in the Trail Trek Challenge is free and open to everyone who wants to get outdoors and walk in the beauty of nature – a great opportunity in this time of added health and safety awareness – and the 2021 program has a new family-friendly feature to help engage youngsters with nature discoveries.

The Trail Trek Challenge flexes to the preferences of all kinds of hikers and walkers. The challenge is to walk at least 5 of the 16 designated trails in the program within a year. The 365-day program works for people who like to hike with family and friends, or solo, and it allows them to hike and walk when it’s convenient for them. The program includes trails that are in or close to La Crosse and trails that are in surrounding counties. Inspirations for day trips and sight-seeing are included in many of the program updates throughout the year.

The new learning feature for Trail Trek Challenge 2021 is called “Find Nature’s Treasures.” In the same place where participants download trail maps for their hikes, they’ll be able to download a unique discovery challenge for each nature preserve in the program.

Online registration for Trail Trek Challenge 2021 begins on Saturday, April 24th, and access to free registration for the program will be available on the Mississippi Valley Conservancy website throughout the year. Registrants receive a downloadable Trail Guide & Hike Log and monthly hiking inspirations in a “Hike of the Month” series of online updates. The Trail Guide includes a map of the hike locations and descriptions and ratings of each trail in the program. Individual trail maps for each hike are available on the Conservancy website.

There are currently more than 700 people participating in the Trail Trek Challenge 2020 which officially closes on April 16, 2021. Participants who complete at least 5 hikes and submit their hike log by April 16 are eligible for drawing prizes at the Earth Fair kick-off event. According to Sarah Bratnober, coordinator of the Conservancy’s Trail Trek Challenge program, the biggest ‘prize’ is the exhilaration of experiencing the natural events that occur every day on the nature preserves supporters have helped protect here in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area. “A person could go to the same nature preserve every day and see something different each time,” she said.

Permanent protection of all of the nature preserves included in the Trail Trek Challenge is made possible by the member-supporters of Mississippi Valley Conservancy, an accredited local nonprofit land trust. “Thanks to the generous support of our Trail Trek Challenge sponsors, many more people have become aware of our nature preserves and the value they offer to all of us,” said Carol Abrahamzon, the Conservancy’s executive director. “These properties are natural spaces for recreation and outdoor classrooms for discovery and learning. Their forests, grasslands, and wetlands are managed to protect our air, water, and wildlife by helping to lessen the impact of floods and extreme weather in this time of climate change.