While this is a regional post and might only be applicable to Oregonians, you might find something similar in your local forest. Or, if you’re really dedicated you can come up to Oregon for a long weekend.
Heading Out For Some Trail Work On Skyline Trail
Instead of showing up at trail work parties with your gloves, lunch, and enthusiasm, then waiting for somebody to hand you a tool and tell you what to do, how about getting some skills so you can lead a project or become more knowledgeable and more effective when you join work parties.
Tbag Moving A Huge Bridge Stringer
There are two upcoming weekends in the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests in the Oregon Cascades for you to gain skills in tread design, drainage, rock work, CPR, trail stewardship, etc, or to obtain cross cut and chainsaw certification or recertification: May 14, 15, 16 in Westfir, Oregon (near Oakridge) and June 4, 5, 6 in Allingham, Oregon (near Sisters).
Building Bridge Over Skyline Creek
The Pacific Crest Trail Association, The High Cascade Forest Volunteers and the Willamette and Deschutes National Forests invite you to attend the annual volunteer training weekend. The sessions offered are designed to train new and returning volunteers. The training weekend offers the opportunity to meet other people who are interested in working to provide quality recreation experiences for forest visitors.
The hours you spend at the training sessions, all the hours you spend volunteering for projects and your travel time to and from the training and projects are valuable to the Forest Service and the Pacific Crest Trail Association.
Misery Whip On PCT
Click here to sign up for either of the weekends. You must register by April 15 and May 7 for the respective weekends. It won’t cost you any money.
Orange Ass-less Chaps
Maybe I’ll see you at Westfir.
Thanks for the post, Craig. It’s got me looking into what training I can get from PCTA-related groups down here in the Sierra.
@Bryon Powell, I saw your post about encouraging runners to go do trail work. I think that is a good suggestion, but exactly how is a runner to do that? How can a runner be useful without being a burden? I don’t intend to rehash my view on mandatory volunteer requirements but when people go to land managers or RDs with zero skills and request (or demand?) to do trail work, well, that may not be well received. If one doesn’t have a relationship with that land manager, organization, or RD, and has no skill set, they may be more of a burden on that land manager or RD. Not everybody that contacts them is a reliable or dependable volunteer and if the land manager or RD has had experience with the not-so-good volunteers, well, they may not want to deal with them even if they are dependable.
Runners, if you want to be effective go get some skills and connections and the opportunities to make significant contributions will present themselves. But be warned that this will take more than 8 hours of your time 🙂
@Craig, I hear ya loud and clear. I’m just trying to get people thinking about their relationships with the trails and public lands they use. It goes beyond just trail maintenance to staying alert to funding and land use issues. To being vigilant in observing your surroundings.
I hope you won’t mind if I add a link to your post from mine to further discussion
@Bryon Powell, keep blogging about these issues! Link away. BTW, very nice new website design.
@Craig, Thanks! I really appreciate it. I think I’ve nearly got the new website dialed to where I want it functionally and aesthetically, as well as optimized behind the scenes.
There’s also a book that was written more for Mountain Biking, but is still pretty relevant for all trail maintenance.
http://www.imba.com/resources/trail_building/trail_solutions.html
@Steve I, thanks for link. IMBA has been very good for the trail community although there do seem to be a growing number of rogue trail builders that are building unauthorized mountain bike trails (at least here in Oregon). I know IMBA discourages this rogue trail building but seems maybe a book like this enables it?
@Craig, perhaps, but I’d bet that most of the rogue riders and trail builders are IMBA unaware. I was pointing out the book more to illustrate that its a good reference for trail building principles
What do you think is a reasonable or fair ratio of trail running/hiking hours to trail maintenance hours?