Trail Talk with Jake Eiting

Yeah.

Congrats again.

It's very exciting and you're like the perfect person to take that on.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, you really are.

Okay.

And so just for people who really don't know anything about your division of Trails and Natural Lands, what does the division do and what areas of public lands do they cover?

Great question.

So Trails of Natural Lands is a division within public lands, similar to parks.

But we manage different types of spaces.

So parks is over a lot of like our traditional type parks, sports fields, things like that.

Our properties are more of what you would call nature parks, so spaces that are managed for a different experience.

So we're trying to maintain or restore what kind of habitat we have for people to enjoy, but also for all of our native plants and animals to thrive in.

So we have a number of nature parks all throughout the valley and in the city limits.

But we also take care of the foothills trail system and quite a bit of acreage

up there in what we call the foothills natural area.

And so, yeah, so we have a lot of properties along the Jordan River, along our other riparian corridors, Immigration Creek, Red Butte Creek, Parley's Creek.

And then, yeah, like I said, the foothills.

Yeah, that's like such an interesting dynamic of all those spaces are so unique.

and different and probably take different knowledge and skillset.

And so your team is very important to kind of like keep all of that ecology going.

Yeah, absolutely.

Each space is a little bit different.

What it means and its history as well kind of dictates a lot of how it's managed now.

But yeah, it's a fun challenge.

Yeah.

Congrats again.

It's very exciting and you're like the perfect person to take that on.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, you really are.

Okay.

And so just for people who really don't know anything about your division of Trails and Natural Lands, what does the division do and what areas of public lands do they cover?

Great question.

So Trails of Natural Lands is a division within public lands, similar to parks.

But we manage different types of spaces.

So parks is over a lot of like our traditional type parks, sports fields, things like that.

Our properties are more of what you would call nature parks, so spaces that are managed for a different experience.

So we're trying to maintain or restore what kind of habitat we have for people to enjoy, but also for all of our native plants and animals to thrive in.

So we have a number of nature parks all throughout the valley and in the city limits.

But we also take care of the foothills trail system and quite a bit of acreage

up there in what we call the foothills natural area.

And so, yeah, so we have a lot of properties along the Jordan River, along our other riparian corridors, Immigration Creek, Red Butte Creek, Parley's Creek.

And then, yeah, like I said, the foothills.

Yeah, that's like such an interesting dynamic of all those spaces are so unique.

and different and probably take different knowledge and skillset.

And so your team is very important to kind of like keep all of that ecology going.

Yeah, absolutely.

Each space is a little bit different.

What it means and its history as well kind of dictates a lot of how it's managed now.

But yeah, it's a fun challenge.