Clear Path Forward
Generational Trail Stewardship is Key to Preserving Access to the Outdoors
High in the mountain, a piece of string trails along the steep forest floor. Tying it to a nearby tree, its guide begins to clear everything that surrounds it and so, a path is born. In the 1940's when trails were first fully constructed at Mt. Holyoke State Park, this was the methodology. Now, generations later, there is much more technique and consideration that goes into determining where a trail will lie, but human stewardship has remained constant. Trail preservation can be laborious, backbreaking work, but without volunteer involvement, it might not get done. If a trail is not properly and regularly maintained, it will quickly revert to its natural state. When a trail erodes beyond repair, it is closed by the state park. Despite cuts in government funding to national parks, and the declining rate of young volunteers, there are still strong forces preventing trails from being lost indefinitely.
Mike Zlogar first discovered his love of the outdoors as a young boy, and he officially began his pursuit of voluntary trail maintenance over 30 years ago with a group of volunteers called Trail Rights. "We would go out with our skills, our knowledge, and our tools and work with other volunteers to try to get them on board to continue taking care of the trails, even after we had left," he remembers. "We wanted to give them a new perspective of what it takes, and that eventually led to other connections." Today, he volunteers with the New England Scenic Trail (also referred to as the Metacomet Monadnock Trail), as well as several smaller groups throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
"The trail should unfold in front of you"Mike Zlogar
Kevin Pelosky's story is similar. He's always been a nature-lover, describing himself as a "self-taught naturalist." Pelosky has been volunteering with the New England Scenic Trail for the last 12 years, but he has been involved in this line of work for thirty. "I was raised with values to give back and I figured, I'm out there hiking anyways, why not bring a saw and some clippers and start to maintain the trails?," he said. Pelosky is now the chair of the New England Trail Management Committee through the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), the organization that oversees much of the trail maintenance for the New England Scenic Trail, and others in the New England area.
The challenges that volunteers like Pelosky and Zlogar face are constant and ever-regenerating. Brush grows back quickly, trees fall, and trails erode under the feet of the thousands of hikers that flock to the 215 mile Scenic Trail. Erosion is one of the most common issues as the trail traction is crumbled away by weather and frequent use. Many of the trails were built on fall lines straight up the mountain, which becomes a convenient path for water, further washing away traction. In some instances the trail has eroded to four feet below the original grade level, which can require filling in or building structures — not an easy feat up 600 feet.
Zlogar identifies three levels of maintenance that go into combating these elements and that allow the "trail to unfold before you," as one of his friends once told him it should. Level one is basic maintenance, like clearing brush and emptying water drainage bars. At level two, volunteers are doing more intensive work, like building rock steps into the trail and rehabilitating the erosion. Level three reshapes the trail entirely, which can sometimes require the work of a professional trail maintenance crew.
Much of the work can be done at level one, with yearly patrols along sections of the trail. AMC has created an "Adopt-A-Trail" program that allows volunteers to "own" a section. Trail adopters visit their sections three times a year, at a minimum, to do basic maintenance and report any more serious work. However, there is always more to be done. "One of the things that we're running into is that the resources we have, and volunteer hours as well as funding for paid crews is not enough to keep up with the work that we have to do and all the needs of these trails," says Zlogar.
More intensive work is done through "volunteer vacations," multi-day expeditions to build bridges, clear rocks, and restructure trail grades. Some of this work comes to play with what Zlogar calls "hiker ethics." "We have a lot of folks that don't stay on the tread," he explains. "They don't want to go through muddy spaces, they don't want to step on rocks or roots. So they go off trail, and then it slowly gets widened, and it moves." In one instance, a trail in the Holyoke Crane State Park has moved nearly 50 feet from where it was originally set. While it may seem harmless to skirt a puddle, or step off the trail to avoid a branch, over time this can cause damage to the surrounding ecosystem, and create expensive and time consuming repairs.
Despite the constantly evolving challenges and the physically demanding manual labor, volunteers at the AMC number in the thousands. "Conserving land is really important for wildlife and people," Liam Cregan, AMC's Scenic Trail Coordinator says. "It's one of the things we can do to plan for a changing climate. It boosts quality of life, and is really important for mental health and developing an environmental ethic." Even with the high numbers, volunteers are always needed. As Zlogar says, "We have adopters of all ages, size, shapes and experience, and all different abilities. Each one contributes what they can."
"It really does feel like a community," Pelosky adds.
To learn more, visit New England Scenic Trail Volunteer Opportunities.
