Volunteer Vacations 2011 - Accomplishments

A volunteer vacation crew stands at the Canadian border, in a short break from logging out 26-miles of trails in the Pasayten Wilderness. Photo by Joe Hofbeck.

Despite the deep snow that blanketed trails on so many Volunteer Vacation trips this year, volunteers chipped in more than 14,000 hours of trail work on adult week-long trips in 2011. By late August, the snow still hadn't melted on some scheduled projects, and to relocate the vacations to lower front-country trails.

And yet volunteers still came out in impressive numbers. More than 190 persistent volunteers worked on the 24 volunteer vacation projects that WTA offered this year. These trips ranged across the state, from the Hoh Rainforest in Olympic National Park to Hall Mountain in the Colville National Forest - and all along the spine of the Cascades.

Volunteer Vacations visited "adopted" locations like the Chelan Lakeshore Trail, where three weeks of work brought WTA's total to more than 200 days over the past 11 years, and completed a long-standing project at Cape Disappointment. But our crews also took on new trails this year. WTA volunteers started treading a new trail to the top of Gibralter Mountain in the Colville National Forest and took on sections of the Pacific Crest Trail where WTA hadn't worked before. Near the Canadian border, a Volunteer Vacation crew logged out 26 miles of the trail (see photo)!

Because of the heavy snow and a construction project at Mount Rainier, 2011 became a year that was defined by the flexibility of our staff and volunteers. Three weeks on the Wonderland Trail became two weeks on Rainier's West Boundary Trail and a week working south out of Mowich Lake on the way to Spray Park. Snow on the Colonel Bob Trail in the Olympic National Forest moved the trip to the West Fork Humptulips Trail. And too much snow on the High Divide near Mount Baker became the gain of several trails in the Teanaway which received some unanticipated brushing and maintenance. Overall, volunteers committed almost 1,000 days to week-long trail work this year, and both trails and volunteers came out the better for it.

Check out all of the locations that volunteer vacation crews visited on the map below. And mark your calendar for opening day of sign-ups in 2012. The schedule will be revealed on January 30 and open for registering on February 6.