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Now more than ever, your support keeps public lands protected and runnable. Donate today to sustain our mission. |
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Camp & Run at 10,000 Feet |
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About six months after Runners for Public Lands formed in 2019, I was part of a small team that organized our very first Camp & Run in the high country of California’s Los Padres National Forest. Some of the attendees would go on to become RPL board members and ambassadors who are still part of the organization today. Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to travel straight from sea level to the highest incorporated city in North America for our seventh Camp & Run, and it was so fun getting to see just how far along the program has come.
We hosted more than 20 runners and community members for a weekend full of running, education, and stewardship among the lodgepole pines at High Mountain Institute in Leadville, Colorado. As a bona fide nature nerd, I especially loved helping people identify the more than 40 different species of native plants and birds we saw throughout the weekend and leading a public lands advocacy workshop. Over the course of the event, we ran in the mountains, learned about local ecosystems and environmental issues, and removed 70 illegal fire rings from a heavily used recreation area in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest. It was an absolute blast.
Thank you so much to the amazing people at Cloud City Conservation Center, Friends of Lake County, the Lake County Tourism Panel, Get Outdoors Leadville!, and High Mountain Institute for helping make Camp & Run possible. And thank you to Teva for sponsoring the event and providing everyone with some rad footwear and to Trail Butter, Athletic Brewing, and GU for hooking us up with great snacks and drinks. We’ll share a more detailed recap with some great photos and videos soon, so stay tuned.
Hope to see you at the next Camp & Run!
Bryant Baker
Directory of Advocacy and Education |
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Spotlight: A Reimagined Everyone Runs Fund |
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After a year of work reimagining and restructuring, we’re thrilled to announce the pilot of the new and improved Everyone Runs Fund this summer! The program now focuses on larger grant amounts aimed toward expanding universal runner access to public lands at scale through projects by community run clubs and groups, run events, local organizations, and local leaders. The new pilot program will provide up to a total of $10,000 in one-year grants, and individual grant award amounts between $1,000 - $5,000. Read more about the Everyone Runs Fund in our most recent news post and keep an eye out for the application to launch on July 1. Thank you to Altra and the VF Foundation for making this program possible.
Por favor, contáctenos en erf@runnersforpubliclands.org si tiene preguntas, necesita ayuda o si presentar una solicitud por escrito presenta un obstáculo para postularse. Materiales disponibles en español pronto. |
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Public Land Policy Updates |
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As we wait for the administration to release a draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Roadless Rule rescission, which will also start the final public comment period, some members of Congress are pushing to nullify the rule legislatively. Recently, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee passed a bill amended with language to nullify the Roadless Rule, while another bill that would do the same has been introduced in the House. It’s unclear whether these bills will actually advance any further, but we’re taking these anti-Roadless Rule efforts seriously. We were thrilled to see so many runners take action on the Senate bill last week, thanks to word spreading quickly on social media and because of Ashley Arnold’s timely UltraSignup article featuring our work on the issue.
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For the past five years, the Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) has helped land managers address deferred maintenance across national parks, national forests, wildlife refuges, and Bureau of Land Management lands—including work on trails, roads, bridges, campgrounds, visitor facilities, water systems, and other public-access infrastructure. The LRF expired late last year, but there are two bills quickly working their way through Congress that would reauthorize it for another five years.
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We’re excited to participate in several awesome events and collaborations at this year’s TrailCon. Come visit us at our public lands photo booth with Patagonia Trail Running anytime June 23 - 24. And meet us on Wednesday at 11 am for an amazing advocacy-focused panel discussion moderated by RPL Board Director Zoë Rom with special guests Tim Tollefson, Griselda Garcia, George Plomarity and Clare Gallagher. Keep an eye out for other events with brand partners and TrailCon throughout the week!
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So far this year, 21 of 36 planned events have been hosted, with several more being added. As of mid-June, RPL has mobilized over 350 runners to volunteer nearly 1,500 hours in nine communities. We are so grateful to all the ambassadors that are leading these events across the country and the new partners joining us to build more. New events are being planned, such as a 4-day trail work outing in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with New Mexico Wild and Rickey Gates.
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Thank you so much to our ambassador Helen Payne for putting together the Santa Barbara Vert Challenge and raising over $3,000 for RPL! Participants had a great time running up and then up some more in the Santa Ynez Mountains of California.
Our ambassador Ti Eversole has been doing a ton of rad events lately. She helped us at Cocodona 250 and discussed RPL’s work on the race’s livestream. She then joined us at Camp & Run in Leadville before going straight from there to the in-person Outdoor Alliance’s Grasstops Collective gathering. She also led a trail run and was on a panel for a screening of Rooted: A Story of Rematriation at the Patagonia store in Telluride to discuss her perspectives on land regeneration along with other Indigenous folks.
Thank you to our ambassador Edwin Hassenstein and trail work volunteer Laurie Nakauchi for running the RPL booth at the Denver Colfax Marathon! They talked to participants about public lands issues and our work.
And last but not least, if you’re in the San Diego area on Friday, June 26, you can support RPL by attending the Trail Running Film Festival being organized by our ambassador Rich Hidalgo and the Coastal Run Club at Patagonia in Cardiff. Proceeds from the event will support RPL! |
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Runners for Public Lands
1680 Santa Ynez St
Ventura, CA 93001
United States
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