Money and Labor: The Power Needed to Keep Trails Open
By Carl Demrow
There are never enough workers or finances for trail maintenance, and these resources are inextricably linked. With drastic cutbacks in government funding over the past several years, you can be sure that we aren’t the only ones with these problems. Current estimates put National Park Service maintenance backlogs at $1 billion, and the Forest Service’s at $300 million. This does not include state facilities, which are often worse off than their federal counterparts.
Even though AMC trail crews and volunteers put in an estimated 70,000 hours of work last year on the 1,400 miles of trail we maintain, there is much more that needs to be done. Our chapters, especially, always need more volunteers to clean drainages, paint blazes, take on the heavier work, and become involved in AMC leadership. All of these roles are critical to fulfilling our obligations.
If you gave the AMC a million dollars today for trailwork, we could have it spent by sunset. We’d use it to help our chapters get the tools they require, build facilities for training and housing volunteers, recruitment, and other needs. We’d use it to leverage more money from our state and federal partners through cost-sharing programs, and we’d hire more trail crews and bolster our volunteer programs.
And if you gave us another million tomorrow, we’d have no trouble spending that, too.
Five Battles: Intro | Heavy Use | Erosion Risk | Our Legacy | Mother Nature | Money and Labor
