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The Mount Hood Chapter was formed in 1994. We are responsible for 221 miles of PCT in southern Washington and northern Oregon. The Bridge of the Gods over the Columbia River is the midpoint of this section, and at 140 feet is also the lowest point on the entire PCT. The northern boundary is at Midway Meadows, Washington just south of the Goat Rocks Wilderness in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and at 6,084 feet, nearby Mount Adams Wilderness is the highest point of our section in Washington. The southern boundary is at Park Ridge, Oregon within the Mount Jefferson Wilderness on the border between the Mount Hood and Willamette National Forests. At 6,920 feet, Park Ridge is the highest point of our section in Oregon.
Stewardship is accomplished by organizing the area into smaller sections of trail that are adopted by individuals or organizations called caretakers. There are currently 27 caretaker sections, but this number grows as the long-term trend has been to split existing caretaker sections into more manageable sizes which are usually between five and ten miles in length. Caretakers are generally recruited from within by identifying the most active and skilled volunteers and are put on a one-year probationary period to evaluate their suitability for the position. Although a caretaker is typically a crew leader, and vice versa, this is mostly due to our selectivity in recruiting and the time it has taken to get full caretaker coverage. Our long term goal is to build a cadre of crew leaders that caretakers can use to address the needs of their sections of trail.
A caretaker is responsible for scouting and assessing the condition of their section in the spring, then identifying and organizing work projects to address the section’s trail maintenance needs (e.g., clearing blow-downs, brushing out, repairing the tread, and performing any other required maintenance). They must specify the work to be performed, when it will be performed, how many volunteers will be needed, and who will lead the crew. When the parameters of the project are determined, the caretaker submits the volunteer requirements to the volunteer coordinator who is responsible for recruiting volunteers for the project. This request is typically made three weeks in advance of the project and volunteers are recruited via the chapter website and email list. Currently there are over 300 volunteers on our email list. In addition to the email list we maintain a roster of people who have offered to volunteer, plus those who have been on a work party. This roster presently contains over 450 volunteers. The reason for the difference is that our equestrian groups generally do their own recruiting and therefore we do not have contact information on many of their volunteers. However, we include the names of equestrians who have been on work parties so that their hours can be counted toward volunteer recognition at our annual meeting. To keep the roster as current as possible, any person who has not been on a work party for three years is transferred to an Inactive roster.
Volunteers interested in participating in a trail maintenance project contact the volunteer coordinator, who notifies the crew leader. Ensuing communication about last-minute details, such as carpooling, then takes place directly amongst those enlisted. Caretakers are the primary contacts with the Forest Service in their sections and are responsible for coordinating with the relevant Forest Service representative about the project before and after its completion. Before a work party, crew leaders check out the necessary equipment from the chapter's tool cache, including hand and power tools, hard hats and other safety gear, Forest Service radio and a first aid kit. At the trailhead they do a tailgate safety and orientation session and have volunteers sign required forms. Finally, they submit project report forms to the caretaker and the area coordinator, who compiles and posts to the chapter website. Volunteers who work two days receive a free Northwest Forest Pass. After 40 hours they are eligible for that year's PCTA Trail Crew tee shirt.
We schedule two chainsaw certification sessions each year; one in Washington and one in Oregon. These sessions have been conducted by the Forest Service, but we are working on getting the training required to certify our own volunteers. We schedule one or more first aid training sessions each year, which is administered by either the Forest Service or other third party. We also participate in other training sessions as they are available such as the WTA’s crew leader college and Forest Service and PCTA sponsored events.
For the most part, our chapter has managed to operate without a budget for many years. Our trips typically do not require an overnight stay; we meet at a location in the morning and are home by the evening. The few overnighters that we have had usually require volunteers to bring and cook their own food. Most of our tools were donated by the Forest Service and our volunteers dig into their pockets to pay for incidental expenses. In the past few years we have been able to acquire funding for tools and training. Any money that we have we keep in an account in and request reimbursement through Sacramento. |
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Overview
