WTA Crews Forge New Trail for Climbers and Families at Mount Rainier

As the summer hiking season has come to a close, so too have some of our summer season's trail projects. In September, WTA trail crews wrapped up a summer of hard work on our single biggest project of the year, the Glacier Basin Trail reroute at Mount Rainier National Park.

Is the project completed? Not quite. About 5,000 feet of new trail has been constructed, a stretch that lies directly uphill from the stretch of trail that was heavily damaged in the now historic flooding of late 2006. Since the project began in 2008, WTA has hosted more than 68 work parties with over 186 individual volunteers contributing more than 7,000 hours of manual labor.  These volunteers experience all that goes in to building new trail: clearing the corridor of blowdown and duff (organic material), removing stumps and rocks, constructing structures such as rock walls and fords - ultimately creating a solid and sustainable tread. WTA's involvement in the Glacier Basin reroute was made possible in part by a generous grant from The Boeing Company and financial contributions from hikers like you.

Hikers have not been introduced to this new route yet; the ends were intentionally left unfinished, and will be knitted together with the existing trail early next season. You are still welcome to visit the Glacier Basin Trail, however-- a temporary path has been sketched out near the riverbed in the floodplain (see this August 13 trip report for details.)

According to Carl Fabiani, Mount Rainier National Park's trail programs coordinator, a full season of work lies ahead before we can call this project done. "This fall, we have a lot of rock to remove." Blasting operations began the week after Labor Day. "Next year, another 2,000 feet of new trail will be built." In all, the Glacier Basin reroute involves a mile and a half of new trail construction.

You can also help by making a financial contribution to WTA. Give now to support the Glacier Basin reroute and dozens of other trail projects this fall.