The D&L Blog

By Claire Sadler, Director of Trails & Conservation

Many D&L supporters have already heard of the Get Your Tail on the Trail (TOT) program and are actively logging their trail miles. If you’re not yet participating, you can register for this free program at tailonthetrail.org and earn trail-related prizes while staying healthy!

May was a busy month for the Get Your Tail on the Trail program, but June and the rest of the summer is shaping up to be even bigger! We’re celebrating five full years of programming for this nationally-recognized program in big ways all year long!

• Fifth Anniversary Celebration Event: Fittingly, we celebrated the fifth anniversary of Tail on the Trail on May 5 in Easton’s Hugh Moore Park with nearly 100 human attendees and many friendly dogs! We had wonderful weather for the event, which featured a group walk with dogs along the D&L Trail, announcements from D&L and St. Luke’s University Health Network founders, and ribbon-cutting at City of Easton’s brand new dog park, “Hugh Moore Bark.” We look forward the completion of a mule-inspired mural along the Lehigh River later in August.
• Lafayette College Technology Clinic: During the 2017-2018 school year, St. Luke’s and D&L enlisted the help of Lafayette College’s Technology Clinic, which encourages students to identify and solve a real world problem in our community every year. This year, the Tech Clinic helped Tail on the Trail develop ideas to increase community engagement and retain active participants. The students planned a mule-inspired mural to be painted along the D&L Trail in Easton in August, worked on the TOT phone app (see below), planned the 5th Anniversary event, and proposed ideas for future program enhancements. We appreciate the enthusiasm and hard work of the Tech Clinic students!
• Tail on the Trail Phone App: In May, through our partnership with Lafayette’s Tech Clinic, we released the Tail on the Trail Android app, which is currently available in the Google Play store. It allows trail users to more easily track their miles and log into their TOT dashboard to enter them. The iOS version of the Tail on the Trail app will be available later this year for iPhone users.
• Senator Takes a Hike: It all started with a simple pledge … then the Eagles won the Super Bowl! On May 8th, in Bristol, Bucks County, State Senator John Yudichak began his journey to hike and bike 165 miles along the D&L Trail, and he will complete his pledge later this summer in Wilkes-Barre, the northern terminus of the D&L Trail. Along the way, he’s championing the cause of the D&L and showcasing its positive economic, physical, and historical impact on our communities.
• 165 Mile Challenge: We are in the middle of the 165 Mile Challenge and encourage all TOT users to complete 165 miles by Nov. 1. Remember to keep logging your miles on your TOT dashboard.

If you haven’t already, we hope you’ll sign up to log your exercise miles, attend free events, earn yourself some trail gear, find new trail sections to explore, and join thousands of other folks building a culture of health using local trails, like the D&L Trail, for preventive medicine. Help us reach our goal of 5,000 active participants logging miles during this 5th Anniversary year!

Get Your Tail on the Trail is a free community-based health program created in partnership by the D&L and St. Luke’s University Health Network in 2013. The program aims to help people of all ages and abilities to meet their personal fitness goals and experience the value of local trails, like the D&L Trail, through day-to-day challenges, public events, and motivating incentives.