2025 Oregon Outdoor Recreation and Trails Summit Recap

Steph Noll
4 hours ago
2 min read

The crowd is welcomed by Eastern Oregon Visitors Association during the summit opening plenary.

Big thanks to everyone who was a part of the 2025 summit in Pendleton! Thank you sponsors, exhibitors, presenters, planning committee members, shuttle drivers, event staff, our host City of Pendleton, and participants who showed up ready to learn, share, and connect! We couldn't have done it without you!

The 2025 Oregon Outdoor Recreation Summit happened in the midst of a federal government shutdown and in the fall of a very challenging year for many outdoor non-profits, small businesses, and state and local agencies. The struggles made it all the more precious and gratifying to come together, and those who couldn't be with us were never far from our minds.

Chuck Sams set an amazing tone for the event as he shared perspectives passed down from his grandfather growing up on the lands of Cayuse and Walla Walla Tribes of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, as well as gleaned from his professional, academic, military and public service career, most recently as the 19th Director of the National Park Service. We started the day grounded in the importance of authentic partnerships and the fact that everyone's work is a crucial part of a positive future, from those hand-building habitat for returning salmon to those bringing future generations into a sense of belonging in the outdoors to the policy conversations taking place in the Oval Office and other halls of power.

Summit session presenters encouraged summit participants to face our shared challenges head-on with a goal of sharing real tools for moving forward. Together we leaned into challenging economic trends, addressing opposition to community-led projects, fire recovery, and building partnerships and belonging in the outdoors amidst past and present traumas.

We also broke bread together, danced, and cheered while some among us tested their rodeo chops on a mechanical bucking pig on the storied grounds of the Pendleton Round-Up.