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This amazing man is doing back-breaking work, all to save a little-known trail.

“When I drive into the Badlands, I feel my blood pressure drop. I feel my stress disappear. I feel my worries just vanish."

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Nature Valley

Sometimes when Nick Ybarra is out clearing the Maah Daah Hey Trail, he just wants to drop his shovel and walk away.

At 144 miles, the Maah Daah Hey in North Dakota is one of the longest single-track trails in America, and it runs through incredible, undulating, wholly unspoiled terrain. It also covers much of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is home to the famously beautiful Painted Canyon.

However, despite its unique grandeur, the trail was in danger of disappearing forever — because no one really knew about it. Ybarra was determined to change that.

The manual labor involved in doing that, though, often proves incredibly challenging.

Ybarra preparing to clear trail. All photos via Nature Valley.

“There have been so many days where I’ve almost quit and given up on trying to save this trail," says Ybarra.

It's understandable why he might want to considering the conditions he works under. It can hover past 100 degrees for days at a time in the North Dakota Badlands. Pair that with running out of water, being miles away from your truck, and being the only one out there, and the frustration is palpable.

Sometimes the work pushes him so far past his limit he just breaks down crying.

However, despite those moments, he keeps at it because he fervently believes trails like these need to live on.

Ybarra talking about his love for the trail.

His mission seems more than apropos considering Maah Daah Hey literally means "a place that will be around a long time."

An avid adventurer himself, Ybarra was inspired to save the trail on his first bike ride through it.

He started at dawn and when he hit Devil's Pass, an uncommonly beautiful part of the Badlands, he was overcome by its majesty.

"Standing there, it just cast a spell on me. This was the outdoor experience I yearned for. That ride changed my life," recalls Ybarra.

From that moment on, he was hooked. He knew he had to do all he could to make sure others were able to have the same experience.

The trail at daybreak.

While Ybarra initially cleared much of the trail on his own, the yearly upkeep could not be done without the help of volunteers.

The first group was made up of fellow bikers Ybarra knew who appreciated the trail. More came around when he started Legendary Adventures New Discoveries (L.A.N.D.) — an organization dedicated to helping people experience the Badlands.

And, today, Nick's dedication has inspired people to give over 4,000 hours of their time to maintaining the Maah Daah Hey. Without their tireless efforts, it's likely the trail would've disappeared altogether.

Ybarra mowing the trail.

In the first year of literal trailblazing, Nick and three friends mowed 200 miles of trail — aka the trail forward and backward. When rains washed their work away, they came out and cleared it again.

Their goal was to get the trail established enough to host a 100-mile race, which Ybarra thought was their best shot keeping it around.

"More people need to experience [Maah Daah Hey], so that’s why I decided to host a race," says Ybarra.

One of the initial Maah Daah Hey 100s.

In its first year, the Maah Daah Hey 100 was a free event 40 people participated in. Now it's in its sixth year, and over 430 people signed up to ride. All the funds for the event go right back into the efforts to preserve it the trail.

The Maah Daah Hey 100 as it grew more established.

They've even been able to expand the race to include shorter distance trails so people of all riding levels can participate. There are also challenging options for the more experienced riders.

Ybarra's efforts have reinvigorated the trail in an astonishing way and helped people rediscover just how amazing the outdoors can be.

Not only has he helped bring visitors from all over the world to what was once a virtually unknown trail, he's reintroduced locals to the wonders of the Badlands.

Visitors on horseback forging a river in the Badlands.

Ybarra hopes this labor of love will continue to inspire new adventurers who might've forgotten about the healing power of nature.

“When I drive into the Badlands, I feel my blood pressure drop. I feel my stress disappear. I feel my worries just vanish. I think that’s so important for people today. To just get out and find peace out on a trail somewhere."

A visitor taking in the beauty of the Badlands.

Watch Ybarra's whole journey here:

He's dedicating his life to make sure future generations can enjoy the beauty of nature.

Posted by Upworthy on Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Heroes

This glow-in-the-dark bike path shows what happens when you let imaginations run wild.

Poland just wrote a glow-in-the-dark love letter to bicycles.

And no, that's not what you see after you die. That's a bike path in Poland that's designed to glow in the dark. It was unveiled near the town of Lidzbark Warmiński in late September.

It glows blue because of special luminophores built into the pavement.

The synthetic materials absorb energy from the sun during the day and slowly release it at night. The company who built them says they can last for more than 10 hours at a time.

The company that built the path said they were inspired by the Netherland's "Starry Night" bike path but decided to take it a step further. While the "Starry Night" path uses electric LEDs, the new blue path needs no electricity whatsoever.

The path is a test run to see if the technology can be used on a wide scale all over the country.

Right now, the track is only 100 meters long. It's currently being tested to see if stands up to weather and traffic and whether they can build it more economically. Currently, the path seems to be more of a novelty than anything else — a way to beautify the biking experience — but if the results hold up, it's possible we could use this glow-in-the-dark technology to help improve road safety all over the world.

(By the way, the company that built this has also experimented with trying to impregnate asphalt with citrus, strawberry, and rose scents.)

Cycling is an awesome way to commute, get exercise, and clean up the environment.

A lot of European cities have embraced the bike, and many American cities are catching on as well.

While we still need to improve our biking infrastructures overall, this glow-in-the-dark road shows that infrastructure projects don't have to be boring. They can be imaginative, innovative, and beautiful, too.

Family

How one easy adjustment called the Dutch Reach could save bikers' lives.

It's called getting doored. And it hurts.

Imagine that a cyclist is riding along calmly when an unsuspecting driver or passenger opens their door. The cyclist has little to no time to adjust, sending them crashing into or over the door.

It happened to longtime cyclist Derek Cuellar of New York on Sept. 23, 2016.

"A man opened his door right as I was passing and I ran directly into the door," Cuellar said over email. "My bike suffered minor scratches as my handlebar and shoulder took most of the damage."

Despite a bruised shoulder and dinged-up bike, Cuellar was able to continue his commute that day. And while getting doored is a painful rite of passage for many urban cyclists, it doesn't mean it's not a life-threatening issue.

Image via iStock.

Cuellar is one of more than the estimated 50,000 cyclists who will be injured on the road this year.

That number may be even higher; hospital records indicate that only a small percentage of bicycle-accident-related injuries are reported or recorded by police. In the U.S., more than 700 cyclists die in accidents with motor vehicles each year.

It's scary. It's tragic. And in many cases, it's preventable.

Cyclists wipe tears during a ceremony after an accident involving some of Australia's top women cyclists near Gera, Germany. Amy Gillett, 29, was killed when a car struck her group during a training ride a day before a bike race. Photo by Getty Images.

But there's an easy way for drivers and cyclists to share the road, and it's called the Dutch Reach.

Popularized in the Netherlands, where cyclists make up 30% of daily commuters, the Dutch Reach is a concept taught in Dutch driver education, and it's an easy adjustment that could save a life.

If you are a driver or driver-side passenger in a right-side-of-the-road country, you probably naturally open the door with your left hand. However, with the Dutch Reach, you reach across your body to open the door with your right hand, which momentarily forces your body to turn and face backward. If you're getting out on the passenger side, simply open the door with your left hand instead of your right.

That simple twist allows you to see cyclists, cars, or pedestrians you may have otherwise missed. The maneuver make take a few repetitions to get used to, but a little awkwardness is worth it to prevent a potentially catastrophic accident.

If anyone knows about sharing the road, it's the Dutch.

Cycling has long been a popular form of transportation in the Netherlands. But as cars boomed in popularity in the 1950s and '60s, cyclists were quite literally pushed aside. Cars edged out bicyclists (on roads that were not built for automobile traffic) pushing riders toward curbs, resulting in thousands of collisions.

In 1971 alone, 3,300 people, including more than 400 children, were killed in bicycle accidents in the Netherlands. People took to the streets to protest the senseless incidents. This coupled with the oil crisis of 1973 led to serious changes in transportation policies across the small nation.

Protesters meet with Dutch politician Minister Zeevalking to discuss the rash of fatal bicycle accidents involving motor vehicles. The group was called Stop de Kindermoord which translates to "Stop the Child Murder." Photo by Fotocollectie Nationaal Archief/Anefo/Rob Croes via Wikimedia Commons

Slowly, progress was made. Car-free Sundays eventually led to car-free city centers and eventually the dedicated cycle routes many Dutch cities are known for. Today around 180 people are killed in cycling accidents in the Netherlands each year. Considering that residents bike more than 500 miles per year on average, the figure (while devastating) is surprisingly low.

Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians need to share the responsibility of keeping our roads safe.

Cyclists don't always obey traffic laws and sometimes go dangerously slow or fast in areas they shouldn't. But drivers aren't guilt-free in this regard, either. Parking and driving in bike lanes, shifting without signaling, and driving while distracted or at dangerous speeds make cycling a risky proposition.

Image via iStock.

Whether you're on two wheels, four, or in a fresh pair of Keds, all of us need to pay attention, watch where we're going, and look out for one another. On the road and in life, we're all in this together.

Most Shared

The clever way Indiana is resurrecting its old, rusting railroads.

When I was a kid, I went on a lot of nature walks with my mom.

We lived in the country in Central Texas and had a little plot of woods all to ourselves. We walked around big, ancient oaks and twisted, gnarly mesquite trees. Sometimes, we'd find a tree covered in big, ropey mustang grapevines and I'd climb up into the trees, pretending I was in the Swiss Family Robinson.

Other times, we went looking for animals. My favorites were the green anole lizards that lived on trees and flashed their red neck flaps at you.

Technically, it's called a dewlap, thank you very much. Photo from R. Colin Blenis/Wikimedia Commons.

There were also tiny black-and-white beetles with rock-hard shells that lived on fallen logs. If you touched them, they played dead until they thought you were gone. And sometimes we even saw deer.

Nature walks are a good way for families to bond. And they're pretty healthy too.

Science shows that spending just a little time outside (walking, looking at the trees, or even catching Pokemon!) can be good for you — it reduces blood pressure and improves mental health. There are even studies that suggest spending time in nature together can help families get along.

But here's the problem: Not everyone has access to nature, even (and especially) in rural areas.


Does this count as nature? Not really. Scott Olsen/Getty Images.

It's easy to imagine how someone living in downtown Chicago might struggle to find nature. But living outside a city doesn't guarantee access to trails and forests, either.

For example, imagine living in farm country. Though you're definitely not in the city, miles and miles of corn fields are just as much an artificial creation as any apartment building (plus the farmers probably wouldn't be happy with you trying to picnic in the middle of their fields).

This is actually a significant problem, so two researchers (University of Illinois professor Ramona Oswald and doctoral student Dina Izenstark) recently examined the lack of nature access in rural America. They found that although a lot of parents may know how great a nature walk can be for both your mood and your body, long distances or costs keep them from getting their families into nature.

“The moms in this study know about health and what to do to be healthy,” Oswald said in a press release. “It’s not a lack of education. It has to do with barriers and access to resources."

But what if we could erase these barriers? Enter the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit that's giving people access to nature in a cool way: by reviving old railway lines.

Photo via Rails-to-Trails Conservancy/Eric Oberg, used with permission.

You see, the United States is criss-crossed with old railway lines.

Photo via iStock.

Many of them are still in use, but many have been abandoned.


Photo via iStock.

But just because they're abandoned doesn't mean they can't still be useful.

These abandoned lines can have new life breathed into them. Take the Cardinal Greenway in central and eastern Indiana.

Way back in 1993, the nonprofit Cardinal Greenways bought 60 miles of abandoned railroad in eastern Indiana and, after teaming up with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy for logistical help, began the hard work of turning it into a nature trail. (Rails-to-Trails support projects all across the United States.)

Photo from Cardinal Greenways, used with permission.

Tearing up a big metal railroad to make a nature trail might seem like a lot of work. But the railroad is already set up for nature walking success.

Most railroad tracks are already built up off the ground (so they don't flood), and they can support a lot of weight. Even better, trees don't grow on railroad tracks, so there's less vegetation to cut back to make a trail.

Cardinal Greenways' first 10-mile stretch opened in 1998.

They also added updated features like new bridges, benches, and informational signs.

Photo from Cardinal Greenways, used with permission.

There is also a playground and exercise equipment. You can even borrow a bike. It's free, too. Cardinal Greenways relies on volunteers and donations to maintain and expand the trail.

Today, the Cardinal Greenway runs for 62 miles, winding through more than 10 small towns as well as nature preserves and parks.

Photo from Cardinal Greenways, used with permission.

Families can walk or bicycle it, giving them easy access to nature and a safe place to exercise, no matter whether they're urban or rural.

A lot of different places have hit on replacing old railway lines with nature trails. Chicagoans might recognize the Bloomingdale Trail, for instance.

Photo from Victor Grigas/Wikimedia Commons.

The Bloomingdale Trail is a greenway that runs for about three miles in Northwest Chicago. You might never guess it used to be an old elevated train line.

In fact, your favorite running trail may have started its life as a railroad track. The Gloucester Township Trail in New Jersey, the Shelby Farms Greenline in Tennessee, and Mississippi's Tanglefoot Trail all started as old train lines, too.

Projects like this give both urban and rural families access to nature — using resources we already have.

Nature walks with my mom are some of my fondest childhood memories, and I'm sure those walks are part of the reason I'm still in love with nature today.

It's awesome to see projects like this making sure everyone has access to those memories like I did.

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