Getting Dirty on National Trails Day

By: Emma Walker, RootsRated—High on the flanks of Cheyenne Mountain, surrounded by towering ponderosa pines and craggy rock buttresses, the beginning of a rudimentary trail is dotted with bright pink flags, indicating the three-mile route the Dixon Trail will eventually take to the top of the mountain. Groups of volunteers, wielding shovels, McLeods, and pick mattocks, are spread along a thousand-foot stretch of trail.

Occasionally, in the distance, a chainsaw bites into a low-hanging branch, widening the trail corridor. For the most part, though, the trail crew is quiet: clattering tools, consultations with the trail’s technical advisor, and banter among the fifty-five trail crew members are muffled by a gentle mountain breeze, punctuated now and again by the cheerful whistling of black-capped chickadees.

Creating a trail is no easy task—construction of the Dixon Trail has been underway since 2011—but it’s essential to preserving the delicate ecology in a place like 2,700-acre Cheyenne Mountain State Park, just outside Colorado Springs. The landscape that inspired “America the Beautiful” has drawn new residents to Colorado’s Front Range by the thousands, and with the influx of hikers eager to enjoy the scenery, sustainable trails are more necessary than ever.

Fortunately, outdoor communities across the country have a plan to accommodate both new and veteran trail users at popular recreation areas. Now in its twenty-fourth year, the American Hiking Society’s National Trails Day offers a chance to celebrate more than 200,000 miles of trails nationwide. Outdoor enthusiasts of all stripes—including hikers, runners, bicyclists, paddlers, equestrians, and bird watchers—participate in events across the country.

Some take their National Trails Day observance a step further, marking the occasion by volunteering the first Saturday in June to help build and maintain the trails they use all year long. Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado (VOC) is no stranger to stewardship—chances are, if you’ve recreated on a trail in Colorado sometime in the last three decades, VOC has had a hand in constructing or maintaining it.

Since its 1984 inception, Denver-based VOC has enabled over 105,000 volunteers to participate in stewardship projects across the state, constructing and maintaining trail, controlling invasive plant species, planting, and restoring natural areas devastated by floods and fire.

It’s hard work—just ask the volunteers moving rocks and digging roots out of the sparkling-new Dixon Trail—but with great reward. Many VOC volunteers have been with the organization since its early days, forging long-lasting friendships with their trail crews. It shows: hit the trail on a VOC project, and you’ll hear plenty of laughter along with the clanking of tools.

This year, the first day of VOC’s Dixon Trail Construction project coincided with National Trails Day, but that’s not the only reason it was special: in past years, work has been delayed, cut short, and even cancelled on account of late-season snowstorms and monsoon rains.

“Finally,” joked group of volunteers as they broke for lunch, “Decent weather for Dixon!”

VOC volunteers made the most of the weekend’s fair weather, completing 1,700 feet of new trail, including two rock retaining walls totaling nearly thirty feet and five switchbacks. The Dixon Trail is still about two miles from completion, so Cheyenne Mountain State Park—currently home to over twenty miles of trail open to the public—is counting on volunteer groups to complete the trail in the next few seasons.

Although its National Trails Day project is complete, VOC’s season is far from over. Volunteers still have time to join dozens of other projects across the state in 2016. For more on how you can get involved, visit voc.org/volunteer.

Author info:

Emma Walker has worked as an avalanche educator, raft guide, and backpacking instructor, and gets out whenever she can to take care of her favorite trails. On her days off, you’ll find her poring over a guidebook to plan her next adventure, or, better yet, on the trail with her trusty mutt. You can find more of Emma’s writing at MyAlaskanOdyssey.com.