Helene, Hiking, Volunteering

How (and when) to help rebuild our mountain trails

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Brent Laurenz, executive director of the Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, pretty much summed up the situation in Western North Carolina in an email sent to the Friends group earlier this week:

“In the coming weeks and months, we will be surveying the trail and assessing damage, but trail restoration is a very low priority in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis facing western North Carolina … it is likely that sections of the trail will remain closed for a significant length of time.”

Trails are a low priority in the recovery scheme of things. An incredible amount of work needs to be done to get the communities of WNC back up and running. But when the time comes for trail restoration, we need to be ready to tackle a big job.

How big? Consider the case of the statewide MST. “As a result of the storm,” Laurenz wrote, “the entire North Carolina section of the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed. The MST from Kuwohi [formerly Clingman’s Dome] through Stone Mountain State Park should be considered closed and highly dangerous. This is roughly a third of the entire route of the trail.”

A third of the entire 1,125-mile MST.

When the time comes, the land managers responsible for our trails will need your help. The MST has already set up a form for volunteers who wish to be part of the effort; you can fill it out here. “There will be a need for sawyers,” Laurenz wrote, “those who can clear trail and rebuild it, those who can oversee work crews, but also for those who can help support the volunteers.”

Other land managers will be in a similar position.

Take the Appalachian Trail, for instance, which is overseen by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The ATC is “part of a unique cooperative-management system, working with numbers of local, state and federal partners to ensure greater protections for the Trail.” Key to the AT’s health are the hiking clubs that help maintain it. In Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, there are a dozen hiking clubs that each maintain a section of the AT. These clubs also maintain other trails in their regions; their impact on reviving not just the AT but many other mountain trails is will be huge. 

Below are links to these 12 clubs; click on the link(s) you’re interested in to learn more about the clubs and their volunteer activities. Note: Join the club and you’ll be the first to know when these opportunities arise.

You might be surprised by the number of trails you hike that are owned/managed by land conservancies. They, too, will need your help both in repairing their damaged trails. Click the link(s) below for more information.

North Carolina’s State Parks will also need a hand. Volunteers for State Park restoration will be coordinated through the Friends group for that park. Those groups include:

The opportunities to help rebuild our trails will come, but as the MST’s Laurenz notes, that’s “a very low priority at this point.”

Be patient. The time to rebuild will come.

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