Mountain West Trails Conference 2024

May 13-15, 2024 | Vernal, Utah

Connect. Build. Learn. Protect.

We invite you to join us May 13-15, 2024, for the inaugural Mountain West Trails Conference at the Uintah Conference Center in Vernal, Utah. Over two days, the conference unites trail advocates, volunteers, land managers, industry professionals, users, and community leaders from the Mountain West states. Together, we’ll tackle trail-related challenges, share innovative ideas, and participate in engaging workshops. The conference provides a unique platform to shape the future of trails in the region, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange that will drive the trail experience forward.

Join us as we convene to celebrate our shared passion for trails, address key issues, and cultivate a vibrant community of trail enthusiasts. The Mountain West Trails Conference is where connections are made, ideas flourish, and collective action sparks positive change for the trails we cherish.

ARIZONA | COLORADO | IDAHO | MONTANA | NEVADA | NEW MEXICO | UTAH | WYOMING

Sponsorship Inquiries

For sponsorships, contact Sarah Kyle
sarah@powerhouse.events | 626.660.6320

Hotels & Event Lodging

Lodging information coming soon!

 

Past Utah Trails Forum Speakers

Morgan Sjogren

Morgan is an author, explorer, and defender of wild places. Her writing focuses on human-powered adventure, public lands, conservation, history, travel, and food. Sjogren devotes much of her time to advocate, educate, and inspire others to help protect endangered landscapes and the environment. She is the author of The Best Bears Ears National Monument Hikes, Outlandish, and The Best Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Hikes. A lifelong runner, Sjogren once raced competitively on the track and trails but now prefers very long walks in the desert or sprinting across slickrock without a watch. A nomad by nature, Sjogren lives on the Colorado Plateau and feels most at home in the wild.

Julia Geisler

Julia Geisler is a passionate outdoor enthusiast, avid year-round trail user, entrepreneur, and non-profit leader with a decade of experience stewarding and advocating for sustainable human-powered outdoor recreation in Utah, specifically at outdoor climbing areas. She is the Executive Director of the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance whose mission is to steward and advocate Wasatch climbing.Outside of her non-profit work, she is the owner and founder of a guide outfitter, Park City Yoga Adventures. Fun fact: Julia’s favorite place to climb is in the Uintas and she once taught English for a year in Japan

Patrick Morrison

Patrick Morrison is a Grant Program Manager with the Utah Division of Outdoor Recreation. A Utah native, he is an avid climber, fly fisher, and backpacker. Before his current role, he served as Trails Director for the Cottonwood Canyons Foundation, an environmental stewardship non-profit in Salt Lake City. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah and a Master’s degree from New York University. A former political professional in New York, the natural lands of Utah are where he belongs.

Starr Woods

Starr Woods has a background in public lands management and is currently a member of the Colorado/Southwest land protection team at Trust for Public Land (TPL), whose mission is to protect land for people. Her past work with the National Park Service (NPS) was focused on connecting communities to public lands in order to inspire lifelong stewardship. Since working with TPL she has assisted with project closings that have added public land to wilderness and Wildlife Management Areas and she has also protected a site for a future visitor services center at Nicodemus National Historic Site. Her current priorities in Utah are working to protect places within Zion National Park and land along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.

Carson DeMille

Carson is an owner and director at Jones and DeMille Engineering and has been involved in community improvements for over 18 years. He was responsible for planning, permitting, funding procurement, design, and construction of the Pahvant and Glenwood Hills Trail Systems. He serves as the Richfield City Trails Committee chairman and oversees all activities related to the local trails. He loves mountain biking and volunteers on the local high school bike team alongside his wife. He is equally passionate about trail design and loves seeing a new trail take shape and benefit the local community.

Tasha Tinagero

Tasha is a documentarian, athlete, and dedicated advocate who believes the outdoors are one of the ultimate tools for community empowerment and personal joy. She has spent the last decade creating more accessible cycling spaces to all who desire to spin their wheels.Her work has ranged from hosting clinics for women/trans/femme/nonbinary racers for events such as Red Bull’s Mission Crit, coaching, former co-owner of Candlestick Courier, and has fundraised over six figures for cycling nonprofits. Presently, she serves as the Lead Creative, Marketing and Strategic  Partnerships for Outride.

Tasha’s time on the bike has ranged from zipping through the streets of San Francisco working as a bike messenger, to racing as far as Tokyo, Japan. She has raced for several teams including: King Kog, All-City Cycles, and Eclipse Racing. While her roots are in fixed gear cycling, these days she enjoys mountain biking and gravel racing. Off the bike, you can find Tasha attached to a climbing harness in Joshua Tree, Yosemite, or Indian Creek. Her filmmaking is rooted in the outdoor spaces, and most recently shot a documentary in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park.

Jenna Jorgensen

Jenna is the environmental coordinator for Jones and DeMille Engineering – that means she tries to keep her engineers out of trouble and in compliance with environmental regulations. Jenna spent the first 10 years of her career with the Forest Service, BLM, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in southern Utah, working in biology and environmental compliance. She has run away from bears, hawks, and a mountain lion. She loves environmental policy and outdoor recreation including biking, hiking, and camping. Jenna was able to assist Richfield City in permitting, designing, and constructing the Pahvant Trail System, and wants to see more trails across the state!

Simon Fraser

Simon is the Owner and Director at Headlamp Studios, a production company based in Salt Lake City that specializes in commercial and documentary film work. He was always captivated by the visual aspect of filmmaking, and later developed his ability to craft a story and turn his hobby into a thriving small business. Simon’s heart beats stronger when he is in the mountains where he spends much of his time climbing and exploring.

Daniel Hawley

Daniel has been involved with the Pahvant trail system from planning through design and construction. He has also been involved in coaching both the Richfield and Carbon High School Mountain Bike Teams since 2014. He has a great love and appreciation for the outdoors and passion for mountain biking. He has a desire to grow both the sport of mountain biking and also access to trails throughout Central and Southern Utah.

Kyle Webster

Kyle Webster is a Park Ranger in the Foothills Natural Area, working for Salt Lake City Department of Public Lands. He has been a part of the city’s new park ranger program since it’s conception in 2022, and previously worked Interpretation for the National Park Service for seven years in Cedar Breaks National Monument. Kyle gained an appreciation for nature at a young age, growing up near areas with an abundance of public lands in central Colorado, Northern California, and both southern and northern Utah. Kyle hopes that through the park ranger program, he can help Salt Lake City in educating park-goers and trail users to engage in responsible practices in an effort to maintain the unique attributes of the area.

Liz Nagengast-Stevens

Liz has been at Fremont as the curator and archaeologist for almost two years now.  She hails originally from Montana, but has traveled all over the world for her Doctorate studies in biological anthropology and bioarchaeology.  Already during her short tenure with State Parks, she has become a Board Member for the Utah Museums Association, completed several archaeological surveys across the state, and is part of the Cultural Preservation Team for the Utah Division of Arts and Museums.  Her passion for history, Native American culture, and Southwest Archaeology has greatly contributed to Utah State Parks. When she is not at Fremont wearing one of her many hats, you can find her out hiking in Clear Creek Canyon where she resides on a ranch with plenty of donkeys and chickens to keep her occupied.

Bryan Carter

Bryan was born and raised in Utah. I obtained a love for the outdoors early in life
and have spent most of my life hiking, camping, hunting and trail riding. I have worked on the Fishlake
National Forest as the Off-highway Vehicle Program Manager for the past 16 years. I spent 15 years on
the Dixie National Forest, Cedar City Ranger District, 9 of which were in trails management. I created
the Markagunt ATV Trail system, the Marathon Mountain Bike Trail and assisted with the creation of the
Paunsaugunt Trail system, Panguitch Loop, Richfield Mountain Bike trails and Parker Mountain Trail
system. I currently manage a network of over 1,300 miles of motorized trail on the Paiute, Gooseberry
and Great Western Trails.

Greg Hilbig

Greg is the Trails and Open Space Manager for Draper City. He is a native Utahn and avid trail runner, mountain biker and gardener. He has been with Draper city for 16 years. Prior to his current position he worked 6 seasons as a Wilderness Ranger and Firefighter with the Salt Lake Ranger District of the USFS. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in Natural Resources.

Pitt Grewe

AllTrails, Head of Public Lands Partnerships

Pitt has been working in the outdoor industry for 20 years. From ski bum to public service, he has always focused on helping people get outside and find a connection with our public lands. In this role, he is helping land managers reach AllTrails users with critical information and get access to important trail user data trends to keep people safe and protect our public lands.  Before joining AllTrails, Pitt served as the Director of the Division of Outdoor Recreation in the state of Utah. Constantly working with the many outdoor recreation stakeholders to increase funding, harbor collaboration and educate communities on the benefits of getting outside. He is always up for an adventure on a trail, a river, a cliff face, or in the snow.

Chelsea Phillippe

Chelsea Phillippe is the Trails Inventory and Planner for the Salt Lake Ranger District on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Prior to this position, Chelsea worked as a Wilderness Ranger and Education Specialist on the Bridger-Teton and Sawtooth National Forests. Her graduate work in resource conservation focused on human dimensions and recreation. She chose to work for public lands after a decade of guiding visitors in the desert southwest.

 

Ian Wright

Ian Wright is the Utah Cultural Site Stewardship Coordinator for the State Historic Preservation Office. He is from Salt Lake City where he lives with his family, large dog named Buffalo and DNR-adopted desert tortoise. Ian has a background in Archaeology, community based education programming and holds a master’s degree in Cultural Heritage Management from Johns Hopkins University. In his free time he can often be found working in his woodshop.

Anna Sprout

Anna is the Responsible Recreation Coordinator for Grand County in Moab, Utah. She manages the Moab Trail Ambassador Program, which focuses on educating visitors in LNT practices on popular Moab trails. In addition, she works with Moab’s community leaders, local businesses, and industry leaders to develop educational programming focused on stewardship in the Moab area. Formerly, she worked in Moab area bike shops, taught high school mathematics and received her Masters degree in Teaching from Appalachian State University.

Aaron Clark

Having discovered a lifelong love for the freedom of exploration that bikes afforded him back in Detroit during his childhood, Aaron began racing his bike as soon as he learned that the sport existed. This eventually led Aaron to Colorado, where he used his mountain bike to inventory Forest Service Roadless Areas and ground-truthing R.S. 2477 right-of-way claims across Colorado while working for the Southern Rockies Conservation Alliance. In 2012, Aaron was hired by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) to lead the Public Lands Initiative to bridge the relationship divide between mountain bikers and the Wilderness community. As part of IMBA’s Government Relations team, Aaron currently works to craft bike-friendly policies and legislation that leverage mountain biking for quality-of-life improvements and sustainable economic development of urban and rural communities.

Tyler Fonarow

Tyler is the Recreational Trails Manager for the Salt Lake City Department of Public Lands. He has acted as the project manager for the Salt Lake City Foothills Trail System Plan implementation for the past four years, and more recently, began coordination of the City’s efforts along the Jordan River Parkway and Water Trail. While Tyler is relatively new to the world of land management, he spent the prior 20+ years in school administration so he experienced his fair share of conflict resolution and project management. His priorities in his role are public engagement, community education, and thoughtfully planning open spaces that create accessible, enjoyable, and sustainable experiences. In addition to his role with Salt Lake City, Tyler serves on the Board of Directors for the Cottonwood Canyons Foundation. 

Haley Long

Haley has worked on public lands since receiving her bachelors degree in Resource Management from San Francisco State University in 2018. Since then, she has served on both federal and city land management teams wearing many hats, in fields such as: trails, dispersed recreation, watershed, wildlife rehabilitation and release, and early childhood education. She now holds a position as a Park Ranger for the Foothills Natural Area in Salt Lake City, where she’s part of a brand new program that the city created in 2022 to encourage voluntary compliance through education, and foster better communication between the public and the public lands department.

Past 2023 Trails Forum Sponsors