Sunday, October 18, 2009

Trails don't just grow naturally

To thousands of hikers, Pennsylvania's 3,000-plus miles of hiking trails are a link to nature.

Running through remote forests and climbing ridges that offer views of hawks and an occasional eagle, the trails are surrounded by so much nature you sometimes hear them called "nature trails."

As Curt Ashenfelter, executive director of the Harrisburg-based Keystone Trails Association, is fond of pointing out, the opposite is true.

"Hiking trails are not an act of nature," Ashenfelter said. "They are built and maintained by men and women."

In late September, Ashenfelter and a crew of more than 20 volunteers gathered at the end of a long, dirt road in Mifflin County to begin a one-mile trek to a work site on the Mid State Trail.

That day's project involved lengthening a wooden bridge on the verge of being lost to an eroding stream bank and clearing a few miles of trail of brush. The crews had to carry the necessary lumber and tools to the site by foot.

"Initially they think [the trails] are an act of nature. Then they come to a place where there are stone steps, or a bridge, or where it's obvious people have come in with brush whackers and cleared it out. Then they start to think a little bit more," Ashenfelter said.

It's a three-tier setup, starting with individuals who maintain small sections of each trail. They typically spend several weekends each year clearing brush, removing downed trees and painting trail blazes.

Slightly bigger projects often fall to the 50 trail and hiking clubs that make up the KTA, including clubs that help maintain the 238 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

The really big projects -- building stone steps, relocating whole sections of trails, or bridge work -- are handled by KTA volunteer crews that come together for about 10 weekends and a few five-day work parties each year.

"If there is something too big for the individual maintainers to take care of, then the trail crew comes in," said Peter Fleszar of Hummelstown, who wears a number of trail volunteer hats.

Fleszar manages the northernmost portion of the Mid State Trail, maintains an 8-mile section of that part of the MST and also maintains a 2.5-mile section of the Appalachian Trail in Lebanon County.

Fleszar has never bothered to count how much time he volunteers each year. All he knows is it is "quite a lot." Altogether, KTA members contribute more than 30,000 volunteer hours annually.

Nobody is paid to maintain the trails, much less paid time-and-a-half, as some hikers accused one volunteer while chastising him for making too much noise as he ran a brush cutter on a section of the Mid State Trail.

"They think it is done by state employees. It's not," said Tom Thwaites, a former Penn State physics professor who is recognized as the father of the Mid State Trail.

Thwaites was the Penn State Outing Club's adviser when the club blazed the first parts of the trail, which now runs more than 300 miles, connecting Maryland with New York.

The volunteer nature of the trail crews saves hikers a lot of money, Thwaites figures.

The late September crew put in more than 200 hours repairing one bridge, building a new one and clearing brush from more than a mile of trail, all for a total expense of a few hundred dollars worth of pressure-treated lumber.

"What would it cost to hike if you had to pay for all this work, if you had to buy a hiking license or something," Thwaites wondered as he watched a crew prepare a site for a new bridge carrying the Greenwood Spur of the Mid State Trail over a 20-foot wide stream.

Both Thwaites and Ashenfelter share a concern about the need for new volunteers to begin replacing the older generation.

"They're not getting any younger," said Thwaites, 80. "Which is supposed to be a soft way of saying, they are getting old -- including me."

"Some of our members are getting up in years, so we are always seeking new members and a new generation of hikers to help," Ashenfelter added.