trail Monitoring on the BMT
One of the guiding principles of the BMT is to strengthen the connection between outdoor recreation and stewardship. Which is why we’re asking all trail users to contribute to our documentation and monitoring of public trail infrastructure and critically important wildlife species. There are two easy ways to get started!
Submit trail reports
Recreation Infrastructure Monitoring Sysytem, or RIMS, is a free to use monitoring platform created by Colorado Mountain Club. It crowdsources reporting on maintenance conditions, user conflicts, stewardship, and more. GHCC will use this data to prioritize our volunteer efforts, advocacy, and funding requests to improve the trail experience for everyone.
​
​
How to use RIMS to make reports.
1. Download the RIMS app on your device.
2. Open the menu indicated by 3 lines in the upper left.
3. Select Tutorial for a tour of the app.
4. Complete your profile.
5. Download maps for offline use in the app. (Oregon (103.4 MB))
6. Watch a short training video to ensure consistent reporting.
7. Take the training quiz and wait a day to be approved.
8. Now you're ready to make assessment reports when you’re on the BMT!
​
​
Document Plants and wildlife
iNaturalist is a free, non-profit tool for documenting and identifying plants and wildlife. It empowers volunteers to contribute directly to the stewardship of wildlife on public lands with location specific occurrence data.
Visit www.inaturalist.org, download the free mobile app, and start submitting observations of beavers, whitebark pine, gray wolves, western bumblebees, or your favorite plant or critter on your next excursion.
​
How to join the project on iNaturalist
1. Join iNaturalist and download the app on your phone.
2. Join the “Critical Species of the Blue Mountains Trail” project.
3. Take pictures of listed species and record the location. If you’re not sure of a species ID, photograph it anyway. Take multiple shots and angles if possible.
4. Upload photos to the app from your phone -or- to iNaturalist.org using any browser.
5. Scroll down on the observation page and click on “Projects” on the right-hand side of the screen.
6. Select the “Critical Species of the Blue Mountains Trail”.
​
​
Photographs used for this page are all from Creative Commons unless otherwise noted. "Joseph, Oregon" by Sam Beebe is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of these licenses, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.