Community Trails, Forever
Support publicly accessible trails on Moscow Mountain for you, for our community, forever.
Volunteer to help build trails and maintain habitat
An initiative of
About Moscow Mountain Forever
What is Moscow Mountain Forever?
Moscow Mountain Forever is an initiative of Palouse Land Trust, in partnership with MAMBA, Palouse Road Runners and other local organizations to permanently ensure access to trails on, and around Moscow Mountain.
What Opportunity Are You Raising Money For?
Your gift today will be placed into a special fund to support generous, local landowners looking to create public trails and ensure access on their land on the Moscow Mountain Corridor and elsewhere on the Palouse.
Today, nearly all of Moscow Mountain's trails are on private land, open to the public through the generosity of those private landowners. However, it's possible that a current or future landowner could revoke access to, or close those trails at any time.
By supporting Moscow Mountain Forever, you’ll be helping families to create lasting conservation solutions that will guarantee access. Even if the land’s ownership changes hands in the future, public access and the conservation easement will stay in place.
What Is The Money Funding?
Every legal conservation easement has money that is set aside for ongoing stewardship of the land. This money works like an endowment so that the land trust who manages the easement can fulfill their legal obligations to maintain the easement on an ongoing basis, and ensure that it survives in perpetuity.
You can learn more about stewardship funds from the Land Trust Alliance here.
Right now, most conservation easements that the Palouse Land Trust puts into place and manages need about $20,000 in stewardship funds. However, the public access component easements can easily double that cost.
The landowner placing the conservation easement on their land typically pays the costs of the stewardship funds for their easement, however, due to the unique circumstances around this easement, the public access component and the clear benefit to our community, Palouse Land Trust is working with our partners, and generous donors in our community to raise the stewardship funds to put these easements in place.
Current project: Trish’s Trail
Where Specifically Will This Trail Go?
The trail protected under this easement will start at the current Idlers Rest Parking Lot, extend up to the North East from there, and connect to the eastern side of the current “Jack’s Route” trail. Thanks to the amazing generosity of the community and matching funds from the Thomas O. Brown Foundation and MAMBA, all necessary funds have been raised to make the trail a reality!
What Activities Will Be Allowed on the Trail?
As with other Moscow Mountain trails, we’re planning to accommodate multiple uses, including both hiking, trail running, and mountain biking on the trails.
When Will the Trails Be Open?
As of year-end 2022, about 85% of Trish’s trail has been completed. When weather and ground conditions improve in the spring, we hope you’ll join in a volunteer work party to help get this trail across the finish line.
The big picture
Why Stop Here?! I Want To Permanently Preserve More Trail Access!
So do we! It’s part of the core mission of Palouse Land Trust, and something all our partners on Moscow Mountain Forever are committed to as well.
We have a number of Palouse-area easements in progress right now that have a public access component to them, in our region, and we’re excited to share those with you soon.
Beyond contributing to this project, you can support that goal in two ways:
— If you know any landowners who are interested in conserving their land, and permanently preserving public access, talk to them about what we do, and send them our way.
— You can also become a supporter of the Palouse Land Trust, here. A recurring monthly contribution will help us increase our capacity to conserve more land and create more access for us to all enjoy.
What if you raise too much money?
Outside of specific project funding needs, all donations will go towards future public access conservation easements on the Palouse.
How can I thank the landowner for conserving their land to public access?
First, by donating to Moscow Mountain Forever. If you include a message for the landowner with your donation, we’ll be happy to pass it on.
If you’d like to send a message of thanks to the landowner, you can share it with us at Palouse Land Trust, and we’ll pass it on.
