WALLOWA COUNTY — Proponents of a proposed 63-mile “trail-with-rail” project between Elgin and Joseph are planning a pair of events in Elgin this spring — a walking tour to help plan the first 15 miles of the trail and a groundbreaking on the project’s first trailhead.

In the meantime, the project has won a state grant to assist with planning efforts for the trail within the city limits of Wallowa.

But a Wallowa County official believes the project still faces steep regulatory hurdles to win approval for stretches of the trail that would cross through unincorporated portions of Wallowa County.

That’s part of the reason why Gregg Kleiner, the project manager for the nonprofit Joseph Branch Trail Consortium, thinks the events in Elgin and the planning grant with the city of Wallowa are significant milestones for the project.

“If you look historically,” Kleiner said, “that’s how these trails go in — in little sections, and people start to understand, oh, this is a cool resource. And then you start to stitch together those sections.”

The planned Joseph Branch Trail is a nonmotorized trail alongside the existing railroad tracks within the publicly owned Wallowa-Union Railroad Authority corridor. The proposed trail starts in Elgin, in Union County, and winds through the Grande Ronde and Wallowa river valleys, ending 63 miles later in Joseph, in Wallowa County. The plan calls for the trail to connect the towns of Minam, Wallowa, Lostine and Enterprise.

Project proponents have scheduled a walking tour of its first trailhead and a planned pocket park in Elgin from 4:30 to 6 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12, starting at the Train Depot in downtown Elgin. The tour is part of a site visit by the consulting team doing planning for the first 15 miles of the trail, from Elgin to the Union-Wallowa county line. The idea is that the trailhead also will serve as a small “pocket park” for the city of Elgin.

The work is supported by a $191,000 Oregon Department of Transportation Growth Management grant.

Kleiner said the public is invited to participate in the tour.

On Saturday, May 20, starting at noon, the consortium will host a groundbreaking celebration at the project’s first trailhead and pocket park, across from the Train Depot. Construction of the trailhead and the first 0.6 miles of the trail out of town is being funded by a $142,000 grant from Oregon State Parks.

In the meantime, the city of Wallowa, working with the consortium, has received another grant from the Oregon Department of Transportation to help plan for a trailhead and a section of the trail inside the city limits.

The grant application was for $195,000, and the funding will support planning for the trail’s second official trailhead and trail section, as well as development of a detailed plan for the 13-mile section of the trail between Wallowa and Minam. The grant will also support local outreach and education about the trail, including engaging local school students in the project.

In a press release about the grant, Wallowa Mayor Gary Hulse said the city is “excited about the plan to have an ADA-compliant trail section in town that will be a community asset and outdoor gathering place for everyone. The trail will not only benefit our local residents, but it will also encourage visitors to stop and spend some time exploring our town, including the Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland.”

Wallowa County issueDespite this progress, winning approval for the trail through unincorporated areas of Wallowa County remains a challenge for proponents.

An attempt to win a conditional-use permit about three years ago for the Wallowa County portion of the trail eventually was withdrawn by proponents. Landowners along the proposed trail route expressed opposition to the proposal.

Wallowa County Commissioner Susan Roberts said she doesn’t see any evidence that the opposition has lessened since then.

“The residents along the track have not changed,” she said. “The same folks are there and they’d have the same opposition.”

She added that she thought a better route for trail proponents would have been to apply not for a conditional-use permit, but instead to seek a zone change on the railroad right of way to a transportation corridor. (The stretch of the trail in Union County is zoned as a transportation corridor.) But she noted that any proposal to change the zoning likely still would attract opposition.

Kleiner said the consortium eventually plans to apply again to the county — or, “ideally, update the Wallowa County transportation plan (which has not been updated in decades) and rezone the railroad right of way as a transportation corridor,” as Union County has done.

He noted that in Wallowa County, short trail sections can be constructed within the city limits of the towns the railroad corridor passes through, even without a conditional-use permit from the county.

And he and other trail supporters believe that as residents see these short trail sections come together, opposition to the project eventually will begin to fade. It may take time to complete, he said, but “the trail will be a community asset that will connect towns and people in a safe way for generations to come.”