Online mapping tool helps plan for safe outdoor recreation amid COVID-19

SALEM, Ore. (KTVZ) – Oregon's Office of Outdoor Recreation is promoting the use of Parkpulse.io as a web tool to plan outdoor recreation opportunities during the pandemic.

Parkpulse.io is an online mapping tool which provides information about most of Oregon’s publicly accessible recreation areas including city, county, state, and federal lands.

This web resource displays nearby recreation opportunities based on a user’s location and shows detailed information for each site, such as; available amenities, the potential for encountering crowds and an estimate of site specific COVID-19 prevalence.

The tool was designed and produced earlier this spring, at no public expense by Knot, a landscape architecture and experiential graphic design firm in Portland. OREC facilitates public-private partnerships and looks for ways to increase accessibility to the outdoors for all Oregonians.

“We were fortunate to have Knot donate their time and expertise toward creating a tool that would benefit all Oregonians throughout this pandemic,” said Cailin O’Brien-Feeney, director of the Office of Outdoor Recreation. “Oregon is fortunate to have many public lands, and there was an obvious need for a map that showed different recreation areas and their COVID-19 risks, no matter who the land manager was – local, state or federal.” 

Because individual park, trail or campground statuses can change quickly, the map encourages the users to visit the given links to get the most up-to-date access information.

With the implementation of Gov. Kate Brown’s Oregon Risk and Protection Framework that went into effect Dec. 3, this tool will also display park-specific COVID-19 risk levels, based on spatialized county health data.

“We hope this tool will be a community asset that will help individuals assess risk and make smart decisions for accessing nature during the global pandemic,” said Michael Yun, Principal and Director of Anti-Disciplinary Design, Knot. “Beyond the pandemic, we hope this tool will help individuals find underutilized gems in our outdoor recreation infrastructure and encourage them to access nature in a more sustainable, more local and less impactful way.”

For more information, visit parkpulse.io.