Ten thousand, one hundred, and ninety-six. Go Beyond Racing runners and organizers have donated 10,196 hours of their time to trail work, since 2018.
We are sharing this data to make a few points, and to help you get involved. We strongly believe that volunteering to do trail work is a just part of being a trail runner. It’s like a core value to us. We all use the trails; we should help take care of them and ensure their existence. And trail work is one of those activities that you feel really good about when you’re done. Yeah, you may be a little sore the next day, but you get to see the results of your work over and over again, when running on the trails where you worked.
2018 is when we started tracking volunteer hours, but we’d been at it for a few years before then. The first Go Beyond hosted work parties were in Forest Park, with the Forest Park Conservancy, going back to at least 2016.
We discovered the 44 Trails Association in 2018 and started volunteering with them on the east side of Mt. Hood, and have returned to many of their work parties, bringing other trail runners with us. We even helped to build a new portion of the Surveryor’s Ridge trail that is now a part of the Wy’east Wonder race.
The Oregon Timber Trail is another group we learned about and have attended a few big projects with them. One was a weekend-long event at Olallie Lake, where we improved the terrible tread (aka a creek bed) on the Red Lake trail, which was part of the Mountain Lakes 100 course until the 2020 fires forced a reroute. We also attended a weekend campout/work party where we got to help cut a new trail corridor on Bunchgrass Ridge, near Oakridge, Oregon.
Trailkeepers of Oregon is another incredible organization we enjoy working with. We hosted our first work party with them, on the Clackamas River Trail, in 2019, and another at Smith Rock State Park in 2022. TKO was the beneficiary of Gnar Gnar and for the final year of Smith Rock Ascent, so we also financially support their work. We also worked with them to host an Intro to Crosscut Saw class to get people interested in taking their trail skills up a notch.
The Pacific Crest Trail Association has always been the beneficiary of our Mt Hood 50 races and the organization where we personally put in the most hours. We are crew leaders, and also caretakers of the 8-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail between Little Crater Lake and Frog Lake. We host logouts and trail work parties every year there. Another unique project we’ve done for the PCTA was to replace missing and broken trail signage all around the Olallie Lake area. This involved cutting small trees and shaving them to make sign posts, digging and installing the posts, and attached new directional signs, as well as hanging signs that indicate entering or exiting the Warm Springs Reservation. Sadly, most of these new signs we created and mounted burned in the massive 2020 Lionshead forest fire… so I guess we’ll get to do that project again.
We truly love doing trail work and wanted to encourage more to get involved, so in 2019, we created the eight hours of trail work requirement for Mountain Lakes 100. That’s 1,200 hours of work a year, just from Mountain Lakes 100 racers! It was a novel thing back then, but we’re very happy it has caught on and that other race directors understand and embrace the impact they can have on trails with this kind of race requirement. When we launched the Oregon 200 race, we set the same eight-hour requirement.
We hear very often from newbie trail workers that they had no idea what was involved in maintaining a trail, how fun it is to be on a trail work party, and that they can’t wait to do it again. They enthusiastically thank us for making it a requirement or for hosting the event.
Most often, no previous experience is required to participate in a work party. There are crew leaders and other volunteers who are more than happy to teach you what to do. Trail volunteers are passionate about their work and are eager to share their knowledge!
Federally-funded resources to build and maintain trails have been scarce for awhile and with this year’s gutting of Forest Service and Parks budgets, some areas are left with literally no one to do the necessary upkeep. Non-profit trail steward organizations are normally relied on upon to do a lot of this work, and are going to have to step up more than ever to keep trails open.
If you have never volunteered before, please do so. If it’s been awhile, please re-engage. If you’re a regular volunteer, thank you so very much (fist bump). Not sure where to start? Here is a list of Pacific NW organizations we’ve worked with ourselves, or are at least familiar with and can recommend:
Pacific Crest Trail Association
Oregon Natural Desert Association
If you aren’t in the PNW, we suggest contacting the land managers of the trails you run to find out who you can volunteer with. Even just Googling “trail work” and the trail name or “trail work volunteer” can give you good lists to start from. Often race directors will know who the local organizations are too and can direct you.
We host several trail work opportunities each year. You can see those on the Calendar on our website. Sign up to join us for a fun time of getting a little dirty, a bit sore, and doing some good for the trails we love and use.