Whether with pick mattocks, step stones, or waterbars, AMC trail maintainers fight a never-ending battle against erosion to keep hiking trails from washing away. And in 2009, their mission was a particularly watery one.

"It rained so much, we had to keep shifting crews around because some areas were too wet to work," recalled Andrew Norkin, AMC's White Mountain trails manager. "The weather provided quite a challenge to scheduling."

Wet or not, AMC's dedicated army of trail maintainers—including Adopt-A-Trail volunteers, volunteer crews, and professional crews—took to the trails and left them in much better shape, providing more than 36,000 hours of work in the White Mountain National Forest, Acadia National Park, Baxter State Park, the Mahoosucs, the Maine Woods, the Berkshires, and the Delaware Water Gap. In addition, The Pennsylvania Highlands Network Project made a different type of on-the-ground progress, with advocates participating in 15 community outreach sessions and arranging other events to build support of that nascent trail network.

Work throughout the AMC region was extensive and participation levels in many programs were record-setting. A few numbers provide a telling snapshot. North Country Trails Volunteer programs attracted 771 volunteers—an all-time high—and week-long programs at Acadia, Baxter, and Camp Dodge hit 96.5 percent capacity. Pro crew installed 500 rock stairs and 207 drainage ditches. Trail adopters, co-adopters, and helpers removed 442 blown-down trees, cleared brush on 92 miles of trail, and built 1305 feet of scree wall to help define the treadway and prevent hikers from wandering off trail.

LEARN MORE
Information on AMC's trails program and the annual spring trails campaign is available online at www.outdoors.org/trails. Updates on all things trail can be found on AMC's Trails Blog. See a list of AMC's 2009 trail crew accomplishments.

In AMC's typical cooperative fashion, many projects were accomplished in partnerships with such organizations as the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, and local land trusts.

Work slated for this year includes reconstruction of several popular trails in the Whites, including the Valley Way, Kinsman Ridge, and Liberty Springs trails; completed relocation of the New England National Scenic Trail, which achieved that federal designation in 2009; rehabilitation of the Van Campens Glen Trail by the Mohican Outdoor Center Trail Crew; and patrolling of the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts and Connecticut by four full-time, seasonal ridge runners designated to perform trail work and provide stewardship information to hikers.

Fueled by funding from the Land for Maine's Future program, trails to five remote ponds on AMC's Katahdin Iron Works property are slated for improvements in 2010 as part of AMC's Maine Woods Initiative. The ponds are prized by anglers for their wild native brook trout, but access routes were in need of repair. Three new campsites to replace three existing sites on the property are also in the 2010 work plan, according to Norkin, who hopes his rain gear spends more time in the closet this year.