Find a hike or help build a trail with the Washington Trails Assocation

At eight o’clock on a Friday morning, a group of Washington Trail Association volunteers gathered at Franklin Falls, a popular hike off I-90, to do some trail maintenance.

After being briefed on the tools they’d be using that day, they were given their marching orders. The day’s job: to build a new ADA trail and to replace a wooden bridge that’s been broken down from moisture and use.

Last year, 3,600 volunteers came out to trails around the state to build rock walls, make trails handicap accessible, and clear water off of trails &#8212 all kinds of trail maintenance work that I just assumed was done by the federal and state park services.

“You are not alone! I think that’s the general sense that, oh, the government takes care of that,” said WTA’s executive director, Karen Daubert. “But over the last 20 years, the funding for regular trail maintenance has declined precipitously. So it’s more and more incumbent upon volunteers to get out there. Last year, WTA volunteers did over 124,000 volunteer hours, so that’s over $3 million worth of hours.”

WTA is less known for the maintenance and advocacy work it does, and better known for its fantastic online hiking guide; the best in the country. WTA’s director of communication, Kindra Ramos, says WTA’s website lists 3,300 hikes and can help you find your perfect trail.

“You can go in and really choose your own adventure. So if you go into the advanced search, you can pick where in the state you’re looking to go, how long you want it to be, how much elevation gain you want, and even things like: I want to hike an old growth, I want to see a waterfall or a lake. And you can plug all of that in and the search results will pull up options for you.”

They also have a free, super handy, hiking app.

WTA has certainly come a long way since it was established 49 years ago.

“Originally, it was a handful of folks who said, ‘It’s so important to get the word out about these great trails in our region.’ So it was all trip reports,” explained Daubert.” People would come back on Sunday night, they’d write up their wonderful adventures. It would be hand typed and then it would be mimeographed off and then mailed out to people.”

Trip reports are still a huge part of the WTA website. Hikers come off a trail and post whether there’s snow, if wildflowers have bloomed, if they saw a bear.

But back to the volunteers, Sammamish’s Emily Snyder has been coming out nearly every Friday this spring and says it’s better than CrossFit.

“The work is great, it’s better than being a part of the gym,” she said. “I’m a trail runner so I feel like I’m giving back to the trail system. These guys are so fun to work with. Every time I come out here they are full of great stories and I have learned a ton. I keep learning more about new tools. I just go home feeling like I had an honest day’s work.”

Volunteers don’t use any large machinery, so one Friday it took six people three hours to move a large boulder. And doing this work has Emily appreciating the state’s well-maintained trails that many of us take for granted.

“I look at them a ton differently. Now I can look at them and see how much work went into them, whereas before, I had no idea. I totally appreciate every time I go over a rootless trail and how much effort that took to get the rocks and the roots out of the trail.”

If you’d like to volunteer, WTA offers one day and weeklong wilderness work trips. Your work will be appreciated; 56 percent of Washingtonians are hikers.