Before the day of trail work started, I vowed to leave at noon precisely, unwilling to stretch my altruism one more minute during my weekend—but a conversation with other volunteers caused me to stay longer at the Biggest Little Trail Stewardship volunteer event at Galena Creek Regional Park.
I was talking with three men, still riding the high that comes with trail work, which tends to leave me with an immense sense of capability, strength and purpose. We huddled around the parking lot, looking back at the hill where we had smoothed out a new trail between the virgin pines. We shared the whereabouts of our favorite trails (I’m sworn to secrecy), the wild adventures we’ve had along them, and hopeful plans for the future of our region’s outdoor recreation.
My brain lit up. After years of hiking here, scratching off every trail listed in guides and apps, my sense of adventure was invigorated.
One of these conversationalists was Curtis Johnson, the BLTS president and crew leader for the day’s work. Johnson was the whole reason I was there; I had interviewed him the day before about local trail-building and maintenance. Over the phone, he offered an invitation to volunteer, which I half brushed off.
Full disclosure: I’ve spent the last five months working on the Tahoe Rim Trail Association’s staff trail crew. For 40 hours a week since May 15, this four-person crew cleared trees, built rock structures, and broke tread on new sections along the 172-mile trail.
While my TRTA team consists of paid staff members, volunteers often join. Some have been with the company for decades and are recognized by the TRTA as master trail-builders, segment coordinators or crew leaders. Others are new to trail work. New volunteers almost always vocalize a lot of appreciation for trail-building and maintenance. They’re often amazed at how much work goes into these projects.
Johnson noted that the BLTS uses mini-dozers to do the initial excavating work when building new trails, but that volunteers are needed to fine-tune and polish that rough job, “which is really fun, because it’s what you call instant gratification, because the heavy lifting has been done. You just have to do the fine, finish work.”
In Galena, we were tasked with just that. The “Robin Hood Trail” is a popular but unofficial trail cut by mountain bikers that you won’t find on a map. It sends bikers through the parking lot, often at high speeds, and the BLTS directors wanted to create a safer route.
“If you didn’t use your brakes, you’d be doing 60 miles an hour easy,” Johnson said. While we stood in the parking lot after our work was finished, two bikers did exactly that. Everyone shook their heads.
The general shape of the trail had been cut out, but a ton of work was needed to make it ridable. A few of us grabbed rock bars (four feet of solid iron used to pry objects) and pick mattocks (whose head includes both a pick to pry and a five-inch-long straight edge to remove material). Other volunteers defined the backslope (the uphill edge of trail) and smoothed out the tread with McLeods (with the handle of a shovel and the head of a bent-down fork). Our team filled dirt bags with soil and moved them to places where rocks had been pulled.
By the end of the day, the team of 21 volunteers completed what looked like 300 to 500 feet of new trail—quite an accomplishment. It’s slow work that takes a lot of effort. First-time volunteers often comment that they’ll never look at a trail the same way again.
Christina Thayer, the Washoe County Trails Program coordinator, once told me that experts carefully consider how a new trail will impact nearby flora, fauna and cultural resources. When trails are not well maintained, erosion can take place, and trail users might improvise a cutoff, called a “social trail,” which can impact the area more than the planned trail. This is one reason trails require ongoing maintenance.
“It’s like having a road,” Thayer said. “You don’t just build a road and walk away from it. You have to maintain it, especially with increased use and things like hard winters. You kind of have to pay to play.”
Thayer said finding volunteers to work trails is difficult, both here and in other regions where she’s worked.
“For the most part, it tends to be retirees and folks who are aging out of being able to do that sort of work,” she said. “This new generation needs to kind of step up and grab the reins.”
While volunteering for trail work helps the community, that might not be reason enough for you to get out of bed early on a Saturday—but there are selfish reasons to participate as well. You can connect with like-minded people and discover new places and ways to explore.
For me, even though I spent my summer of trail work smelling like a sunbaked garbage can, I felt capable and accomplished—a feeling I’m otherwise missing in the oppressive and doubting day-to-day routine of a freelance writer. In what other volunteering job can you learn how to move a thousand-plus-pound rock 50 feet down a steep side slope without killing anyone?
To sign up to volunteer with Biggest Little Trail Stewardship on a future trail work day, visit www.bltsnv.org/events.html or www.facebook.com/poedunks.