By Bob Arkes
“Wow!” Maybe Dana Hendricks, Columbia Cascades PCTA Regional Representative said it all in a single word, but perhaps a few more are in order.
On Oct. 3, on behalf of Thomas Tidwell, chief of the Forest Service, Mount Hood National Forest Supervisor Lisa Northrop presented PCTA’s Mount Hood Chapter with the 2014 U.S. Forest Service Volunteers & Service Leadership Award. Lisa presented the award during the chapter’s annual picnic, highlighting the extensive training programs the chapter offers local volunteers, their willingness to work on trails year-round, the corporate partnerships they’ve developed, and the doubling of volunteer hours between 2013 and 2014.
PCTA invests heavily in community-based volunteer groups like the Mount Hood Chapter to help keep the PCT maintained and passable for hikers and horseback riders. Founded by Steve Queen in 1994, the Mount Hood Chapter is one of the largest and most active of PCTA’s community-based groups. From Oct. 1, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2014, the chapter volunteered more than 14,000 hours. Think of it this way: 14,000 volunteer hours equates to 1,750 eight-hour days returned to the trail. Volunteers spent this time clearing logs, cutting brush and constructing and maintaining drainage features on the PCT.
Jennifer Wade & Lisa Northrop present the 2014 Forest Service Volunteers & Service Leadership Award to Mt. Hood Chapter Chair, Roberta Cobb. Photo by Liz Marriott
Led by Roberta Cobb, who avoids calling herself “president or chair,” the Mount Hood Chapter maintains 214 miles of the PCT and 38 miles of feeder trails by dividing responsibility amongst 40 caretakers. Each caretaker takes lead for a particular section of trail, scouting it when the snow melts and coordinating the season’s maintenance projects with local agency partners, such as the Mount Hood National Forest. The chapter’s volunteer manager helps connect more than 400 active members to these maintenance projects, ensuring caretakers have plenty of helping hands to complete the much-needed trail work.
While first-time volunteer trail maintainers are welcome on projects, much of the chapter’s volunteer base is skilled thanks to the various training programs the chapter helps coordinate. The biggest training event of the year is the PCTA’s Trail Skills College. Each year, the Mount Hood Chapter assembles a Trail Skills College volunteer planning committee, complete with a volunteer event chair, publicity/social media manager, registrar, class coordinator, logistics coordinator, and food facilitator. In 2014, more than 100 participants turned out for the Trail Skills College in Cascade Locks. These volunteers were able to choose from 15 trail skills classes, from Basic Trail Design to Traditional Tools, Grip Hoist/Rigging and Crew Leadership. In addition to agency partners, volunteers teach the courses. PCTA and the Mount Hood Chapter have volunteer instructors who are trained to certify other volunteers in basic first aid, CPR and chainsaw and crosscut saw usage.
The Mount Hood Chapter has had great success organizing and leading volunteers thanks to the structure they’ve built into their chapter and the partnerships they’ve built. For example, In 2014, their partnership with Portland’s New Seasons Market resulted in more than 500 volunteer hours of trail maintenance.
When an attendee asked Lisa Northrop how many of these awards the Forest Service gives annually, she quickly answered: “One.”
PCTA salutes the Mount Hood Chapter for earning the top award given by the Forest Service.
Maybe Dana did say it all. WOW!
Read the U.S. Forest Service Volunteers & Service Leadership Award letter from Thomas Tidwell, chief of the Forest Service.
Forest Service Volunteers & Service Leadership Award