For more than a hundred years, people have walked along the canal trails in Cache Valley. Dozens of dirt paths wind through the valley and are used for jogging and biking. These trails connect communities together and community leaders want to preserve the trails.
Cache County community leaders are holding two public meetings to discuss the future of canal trailsin Cache Valley. Cache County Trails Planner Dayton Crites says the trails are a part of Cache Valley history.
“These trails are really, really different from your average trail on the map. If you look at a map of Cache County, you’ll see scrawling lines everywhere. And the vast majority of that are up in the forest," he said. "But those don’t provide inter community connectivity. Those don’t let you leave your house in the afternoon and take a walk somewhere safe and away from traffic.”
Elected officials from Logan, Smithfield and Hyde Park want to preserve these trails for public use. They are particularly looking at eight miles of trails between Logan and Smithfield.
“The opportunity we have here if we preserve a large piece of these, is an uninterrupted walking and biking corridor from Smithfield to Logan," Crites said. "It’s one the very few opportunities we have to preserve a piece of Cache County history.”
But officials want to know what community members think of the canal trails.
"These open houses are a really critical moment for people to come up and say what they want these trails to be moving forward," Crites said.
Cache County residents are invited to attend two public open-house meetings on Wednesday, March 29 at the Hyde Park City Offices from 7-9 p.m. The second meeting is on Wednesday, April 12 at the Greenville Elementary School from 7-9 p.m.
