I can’t emphasize this enough. If you don’t want to lose trails and access you have to get involved.
No matter how you do it, personal involvement is the biggest thing that is going save trails. Whether it is through physical effort or your wallet, step up and make your voice heard. And while it is easy to suggest that others volunteer, it’s hard to advocate volunteering or getting involved if you don’t do it yourself. This is what pushed me over the edge and off the couch to help out.
Work Parties
Work parties at your local trails are a great way to help. You never know what you will be needed for on a particular day. Could be moving rocks, digging water bars or just picking up trash, you never know. Just be flexible and ready to work the whole day. Wear your grubby clothes, bring gloves and pack a lunch. You won’t be the least bit sorry you turned out and more than likely you will end up with new friends and folks to wheel with.
On work days wheeling takes a back seat to the job at hand. I am there to work not wheel. But even if you can only work half the day that is still appreciated. Luckily at the Walker Valley ORV area we have a great trail manager who is more than happy to have the help and is not put out if you want to wheel for part of the day.
And I doubt there is a single agency tasked with maintaining our forests and public lands that can’t use some sort of help getting things done in today’s economy. The Department of Natural Resources here in Washington state are more than happy to have the help and even offer incentives for your time. And even if your local agency doesn’t have organized work parties call them and maybe put one together.
And try to get your fellow club members involved as well. Maybe suggest a work day at your local wheeling spot. Things happen once you commit, just like setting up a run. Once you say you are going others tend to jump on the band wagon.
Financial Help
Agencies, groups and organizations need more than just your back, legs and arms for physical labor. While our labor may be free there are other costs involved when working on the trails. Even garbage bags cost money. One of the local 4×4 clubs in my area put up over $1100 towards the cost of renting excavators to do the heavy work on a recent trail restoration I was involved with. These tractors and the personal rigs of volunteers moved more than 50 yards of rock. There is no way we could have gotten as much done as we did were it not for the financial backing of that club or the willingness of guys to load up their rigs with rocks. But I have to admit the hardest part was that most of the rock was still unloaded and placed by hand.
On a national level physical effort is not as useful as your money. Supporting organizations that have wheelers best interests at heart can be just as valuable as your physical efforts. It takes quite the effort to make things happen at the nations capital and most of that effort costs money. Joining one of the many groups that are on our side is a good idea. Even writing letters to your congressman (or woman) lets them know just what one of their constituents (that means you!) expects out of them while they serve. And with the Internet it is very easy to write letters.
Pay it Forward
Everyone wheels somewhere and frequently it’s at places I can’t help out with trail maintenance. And this is what makes helping out in your local area so important. Even if you don’t wheel at that particular place someone does. In my mind this somewhat pays back the fact that somewhere else other folks are maintaining the trails I use or will use in the future. They may even make it up to my area one day so why not return the favor by maintaining the local trails.
A Simple Act
It never hurts to pick up trash at every opportunity. You can even make it a challenge between rigs or between your kids. I didn’t leave it in the woods but there is no good reason that I don’t pick it up and haul it away. Spare tire trash containers are not only good for camp but also for the trail. They hold a lot of other peoples trash and are really easy to hook on the spare. Besides that your better half will be much happier if you are not packing trash inside your rig. Taking home more than you left (which should be nothing….) is the name of the game.
And realistically, saving our trails and access can all start with the simple act of picking up a single piece of trash….
