To create Trail View, granola bar makers Nature Valley and McCann Erickson sent a ragtag team of creatives and developers on a 45-day hike to get couch potatoes interested in the real thing and raise awareness of the national parks’ plight.

Photos from Nature Valley

Nearly a century ago, Woodrow Wilson created the National Park Service, galvanizing a widespread movement to preserve the country’s heritage and promote tourism. At the time, President Wilson could only have imagined the technological and organizational tools that would help achieve these goals. And, almost guaranteed, not once did he imagine a huge part of this effort would be brought to us by the makers of mouthwatering granola bars.

Funny how things change.

As it happens, General Mills brand Nature Valley has embarked on an ambitious initiative called Trail View to bring the parks experience to the indoors- and outdoors-oriented alike. “Nature is something you have to get close to in order to be moved by it,” says Scott Baldwin, Senior Marketing Manager at Nature Valley. “It’s easy to just show a picture of nature, but people want to have deeper experiences.” To deliver that deeper experience, the company sent content-gathering teams throughout the Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon this past summer to digitally capture 100 odd miles of each area, and replicate them online. Eventually, users will be able to experience, in real-time, a first-person perspective of hiking these trails, clicking on embedded points of interest along the way for pop-up information and videos. It’s a virtual hiking expedition anyone can take.

Although Nature Valley has long been a supporter of the national parks (it’s practically in the brand name), most recently raising money through its “Preserve the Parks” campaign, the company had been brainstorming ideas for how to do more to actually preserve them. The resulting concept, developed through agency partner McCann-Erickson, is a model for how marketers can make a useful contribution to a cause without over-branding it. In addition to removing the barriers to entry so people can experience these trails remotely, Trail View will spread awareness of the parks at a time when funding is low, and digitally record them for posterity.

Yellowstone

“This initiative lets [Nature Valley] stand for something,” says Leslie Sims, executive creative director at McCann. “They aren’t just pushing granola bars on hikers.”

It was only because of Nature Valley’s long-standing relationship with the National Park Conservation Association that the company was able to garner approval for the project. The parks are famously very protective when it comes to filming on their grounds, but the company approached each park individually and promised to leave zero impact on the environment.

Between March and June of 2011, Nature Valley and McCann-Erickson went to work, putting together a mixed team of talent for a project with many moving parts. The agency would need a content strategy team for web distribution, a design team that would also put together custom 360 degree photography equipment, a hiking team to lead the expedition, and a skilled camera person to shoot it all. The creatives would also have to participate in the fieldwork. Both figuratively and literally, there was a lot of ground to cover.

Editors from Backpacker Magazine agreed to lend their expertise in national park trails and lead the hikes. Content strategy firm In the MO came aboard soon after. The project required a team with best-of-class designers who would also be able to hike, so the agency recruited digital agency Your Majesty. In a meeting with YM co-founder, Jens Karlsson, Catherine Patterson, executive integrated producer at McCann offered this simple plea: “You’re the only ones crazy enough to do this, and you’re the only ones who can do this. Also, you’re going to get to hike your asses off.”

Grand Canyon

Everyone involved had to engage in four to six weeks of training to ensure that nobody would get dehydrated or otherwise crap out during the shoot. Each member of the crew logged 150 miles of mandatory hiking experience, done on their own time.

Because this initiative marks the first application of street view-style camera technology in hikes or on mountains, the cameras required specially designed backpack rigging. “A lot of equipment was involved,” says Mat Bisher, associate creative director at McCann. “There’s a good reason why street view is done in cars.” During a June test run in the Grand Canyon, the panoramic cameras fell apart and started melting during discovery. They were supposed to be heat-resistant up to 120 degrees, but not at sustained exposure to those conditions. After customizing the cameras further, the design team suggested saving the Grand Canyon for the final leg of the hike, where they’d know to anticipate the cameras falling apart eventually, rather than at the beginning of the trip.

The actual filming went off without a hitch, however, barring the occasional alarming grizzly bear scratch mark on trees. From a distance, the assembled masses would have looked like a caravan of settlers. The field crew from Backpacker Magazine (or “bear bait” as Patterson referred to them) headed up the front, setting the pace and keeping the operation environmentally sound. Shortly behind them were the agency creatives, who scouted locations and points of interest. The next wave included the tech team–who kept lenses clean, adjusted settings, and kept the cameras out of contact with each other–as well as master cameraman, Brandon McLane. Finally, trailing behind, was a sweeper team, who made sure nothing was left behind. Although some of the crew only stayed for shorter periods, the hike lasted 45 days total.

The biggest surprise along the way, according to Catherine Patterson, who stayed for the entire hike, was the sparse tourist traffic on the trails. “We anticipated having to avoid filming crowds, and blurring out logos when we did,” she says, “but there was hardly anyone hiking at all some days.” Seeing firsthand the lack of tourism in tough economic times only made the prospect of evangelizing the national parks more attractive to everyone involved.

The first stage of Trail View will debut online in February 2012. It will operate as its own platform, with an exploratory feel. Once utility is up and running, Nature Valley will add layers for user-generated content, social networking and mobility, and perhaps form partnerships with travel sites—encouraging visitors to actually take a trip to visit the parks. Eventually the company hopes to digitally map other locations and build an educational, curated layer to the initiative. “This is not just a piece of entertainment,” says Bisher. “We’re committing to an ongoing proposition.” As this proposition is aligned with the National Park Service’s original goals, Woodrow Wilson would have likely approved.

It may be a few months before snowdrifts settle in at Yellowstone National Park, but flurries of litigation over its winter-use policy are in the current forecast.

On Thursday, the Obama administration announced plans to reduce the number of snowmobiles allowed in the park to 318 per day — less than half of the previous daily limit of 720. The announcement was followed on Friday by Gov. Dave Freudenthal and other state officials seeking to keep the cap at 720. The state’s congressional delegation also voiced its opposition to this latest development in a decade-long saga.

The number of snowmobiles has been under scrutiny and debate since the Clinton administration set to ban the machines altogether in 2000.

Since then, the figures 318, 540, 720 and zero all have been tossed around in a tug-of-war to determine exactly how many snowmobiles can enter the park’s gates on any given winter day.

Those who live in the Yellowstone area are justifiably annoyed that people thousands of miles away have a sway in the park’s governance. Yet, since it is a national park, it is up to Americans — whether in Wyoming or Washington — to decide.

With the 318-per-day proposal last week, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar also announced a 45-day public comment period, which ends Sept. 8.

This is an opportunity for those living at Yellowstone’s threshold to denounce or praise the newest snowmobile cap.

As Freudenthal said in an Associated Press article: “It would be nice if they sat down and said, ‘What really works for the folks who are wanting to visit, and the folks who are making a living up in Yellowstone?’”

Eventually, a permanent limit will be reached. Until then, speak up.

By MATTHEW BROWN (AP) – 1 day ago

BILLINGS, Mont. — The state of Wyoming on Friday asked a federal judge to force Yellowstone National Park to allow up to 740 snowmobiles daily during winter — more than twice what the Obama administration wants.

The administration said Thursday it wants to cut the number of the machines to 318 daily and require all riders to take guided tours.

That would last for two years while a permanent rule is crafted on how many are allowed.

Also Friday, six members of Congress — from Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Colorado and Utah — asked Interior Sec. Ken Salazar to reconsider the administration’s proposal.

Since an outright ban on snowmobiles was proposed by President Bill Clinton in 2000, the number allowed has gone up and down according to competing court orders and power shifts in Washington.

Yellowstone includes portions of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The Obama proposal also reduces the number of snowmobiles in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park and the adjacent John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway, a park spokeswoman said Friday.

Under the prior plan, those parks allowed a combined 140 snowmobiles per day. The new one calls for just 50 per day, said Jackie Skaggs at Grand Teton National Park.

The administration proposal is now in a 45-day public comment period.

The number of snowmobiles desired by Wyoming would be the same as what was in place for the past several years.

U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne issued an order last November saying the old rules should be kept in place until permanent numbers for the three parks are settled on.

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office on Friday filed court documents asking Brimmer to enforce that order.

“It would be nice if they sat down and said, ‘what really works for the folks who are wanting to visit, and the folks who are making a living up in Yellowstone?’” said Wyoming’s Democratic Gov. Dave Freudenthal.

“It seems to me that the environmental groups aren’t going to be satisfied with anything more than zero, so we’re going to continue to have a fight,” he added.

The prior cap of 720 machines was never reached. An average of 205 snowmobiles daily entered the park in 2008-09, when the busiest day of the season saw only 426 of the machines.

Associated Press Writer Ben Neary in Cheyenne contributed to this story.