Victor City Council Approves Easements Connecting AJ Trail to Public Lands
Decision follows extensive public input, additional agency review, and nearly four hours of presentations, questions, public comment, and Council deliberation
Victor City Council Approves Easements Connecting AJ Trail to Public Lands
Decision follows extensive public input, additional agency review, and nearly four hours of presentations, questions, public comment, and Council deliberation
VICTOR, Idaho — The Victor City Council on Wednesday approved two public-access easements that legally connect the existing AJ Linnell Memorial Trail to federal public lands east of Victor, completing a connection envisioned when the community trail was built more than a decade ago.
The Bender and Thomas easements provide the only lawful public access across private property to Bureau of Land Management lands adjacent to the city, resolving the long-standing “corner crossing” that prevented legal public access directly from the AJ Trail. The Council also approved a Memorandum of Understanding with Teton Valley Trails and Pathways and Mountain Bike the Tetons establishing responsibilities for stewardship, management, and compliance associated with the easements.
“I do believe that if there is access to the BLM parcel and the Forest Service beyond, it should be available to all,” Mayor Sue Muncaster said during Council deliberations.
Wednesday’s decision followed an extended public process. The Council initially considered the easements on August 12 but continued the matter after hearing community concerns over wildlife protections on the Victor Front and directed staff to gather additional information from state and federal land management agencies before deciding.
By Wednesday’s meeting, Council had received and reviewed more than 150 written and in-person public comments from citizens and local government and recreation advocacy organizations; including support from the Board of Teton County Commissioners and Idaho Sate Parks and Recreation.
The City also brought representatives from the Bureau of Land Management and Idaho Department of Fish and Game before Council to provide additional information and respond directly to Council questions. Representatives from Teton Valley Trails and Pathways and Mountain Bike the Tetons presented the history of the project, the proposed access and trail system, easement conditions, construction and management practices, and long-term stewardship responsibilities.
Following the presentations and Council questions, the City again opened the matter for public comment before Council deliberated and voted.
“We asked for additional information on August 12, and we obtained it,” Muncaster told the audience as the work session began, explaining that the purpose of the additional review was to give Council the information it needed to deliberate on the easements and any reasonable conditions within the City’s authority.
Completing the original connection
The AJ Linnell Memorial Trail was completed in 2015 with the intention of creating a community recreation asset and providing public access toward the public lands east of Victor. But where the existing trail reached the BLM boundary, the configuration of private and federal parcels created a corner-crossing problem that prevented lawful public passage directly onto the federal land. The newly accepted easements close that gap.
The easements complete the legal connection from the AJ Trail to public lands, but they are not the only access to the broader public-land network, which can also be reached from the Mud Lake area. Their significance is that they resolve the long-standing access gap from the AJ Trail itself and connect the community trail to designated routes on federal land.
Those designated routes are the result of a separate, decade-long federal planning process. BLM began revising its Upper Snake East Travel Management Plan in 2016, including public meetings and public comment, and reopened the process in 2023 with a Draft Environmental Assessment, another public comment period and open houses in Idaho Falls, Driggs and Ashton. BLM completed its Final Environmental Assessment and travel-management decision in 2024.
The connection provides legal public access from the AJ Trail to Victor Front public land and designated routes within BLM’s Upper Snake East Travel Management Area.
The action also reflects more than a decade of community investment in the AJ Trail. The project has been supported through volunteer trail work, private landowner cooperation, hundreds of individual contributions, local organizations, and state and federal partners. The AJ Linnell Memorial Trail Fund alone has received 425 contributions toward the current project.
Under the MOU approved Wednesday, the City will hold the easements as the responsible public agency, while TVTAP and Mountain Bike the Tetons will serve as primary partners for stewardship, management and compliance with the easement conditions.
The Bender and Thomas easements each passed on a 2–1 vote with one abstention, newly-appointed councilor, Erika Linnel, AJ Linnell’s widow. The MOU passed by the same vote.