Trail Work Accomplishments 2012

Record volunteer turn-out on 170 trails

• WTA connected nearly 2,700 volunteers with needed trail projects across the state in 2012, contributing close to 100,000 hours of work. These volunteers contributed $2 million worth of service to Washington’s public lands in 2012.
• More than 1,700 volunteers were new this year, and 38% of the all volunteers came out more than once. What’s more, 525 volunteers donated 5 days or more of their time.
• WTA volunteers maintained and improved a record 170 different trails this year. Fielding 636 day trips as well as 26 week-long Volunteer Vacations and 46 multi-day Back Country Response Teams, WTA hosted 1,117 days of trail work over the course of the year.
• WTA’s work spread across the state and among 23 land management agencies. Our trail crews worked in two national parks, five national forests, nine state parks, the State Department of Natural Resources, two county park systems, a national wildlife refuge, two city parks and a land trust.

• Kids and teens contributed a record number of hours this year, making up 15 percent of WTA’s overall trail work. Of the 300 green hardhats bestowed upon volunteers on their fifth work party, 100 went to volunteers under 18 this year.

WTA was instrumental in the reopening of two trails closed by fire and landslides this year

• WTA Backcountry Response Teams and day crews spent 21 days logging out extensive stretches of burned trees, repairing tread and removing rock on the fire-stricken Duckabush Trail in the Olympics.
• At Mount Rainier National Park, WTA crews were called in to repair a landslide on the Comet Falls Trail that took out a chunk of trail 10 feet across and 30 feet deep. More than 190 volunteers spent 30 days working to reopen this popular hike.

Two trails that WTA volunteers spent years building were celebrated by ribbon cuttings in 2012.

• In February, WTA volunteer Pete Dewell pounded in the golden spike on the Grand Ridge boardwalk, the final nail in an 11-year project that built a 7-mile traverse through King County’s Grand Ridge Park.
• In October, the newly christened 0.75 mil Hardy Ridge Bridge Trail officially opened to hikers in Beacon Rock State Park, providing a new loop option for hikers. Volunteers spent three years tackling a variety of challenges on this project.

Volunteers built bridges, created reroutes, logged out downed trees, built new trails across the state.

• Volunteers spent 10 days improving and remodeling the popular Blanca Lake trail, providing general maintenance and rerouting the steep and challenging section to the lake by rerouting it to an old trail bed.
• At Bean Creek Basin in the Teanaway, volunteers rerouted the trail around a sensitive and muddy wildflower meadow.
• Youth and adult crews built bridges and puncheon at the Lone Fir nature trail in the Methow, in an effort to rebuild a family-friendly loop trail.
• Spokane-area volunteers made progress on a vision to link the trails in the Iller Creek-Big Rock area by building new tread along the ridge of Big Rock, a favorite of local climbers.
• Mailbox Peak is getting a new trail to the summit, and WTA volunteers spent 25 days this fall helping to construct the new route.
• The Pacific Crest Trail received lots of WTA love this year, with one Youth Vacation, 6 Volunteer Vacations, 3 Backcountry Response Team trips and 14 day trips working 13 different sections.

Locations of All Trails WTA Maintained in 2012