[at-l] Giving Back to the Trail

[spiriteagle99 at hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

In no particular order of importance:

Membership in trail and hiking organizations:  ATC, KTA, MST, ALDHA, 
ALDHA-West, PCTA, CDTA, CDTS, AZT.  We've dropped a few others in the past 
couple of years.

Donations to land trusts and trail organizations.

Trail building and maintenance with KTA several weekends a year, maintenance 
of our section of the Midstate Trail in PA, occasional maintenance on local 
trails when necessary (i.e. after hurricanes and ice storms).

Trail reports to managing organizations after trips, when necessary or 
useful.  Wheeling trails and sharing trail guides we've created for Elk 
Trail, Bucktail Path, Donut Hole Trail and Chuck Keiper Trail.  Donating 
information to KTA for publication (that was a few years ago.)

Frequent trail clearing while hiking (hiking sticks are great for flicking 
sticks off the trail and the saw isn't all that heavy).

Hiking obscure trails and recommending them to other hikers.  If they aren't 
used, they will be lost.

Giving advice to wanna be hikers on the AT, PCT and CDT as requested.

Volunteering to put on workshops at ALDHA.  Active participation in the 
organization in the form of attending steering committee meetings, being on 
the board (Jim), coordinating a Gathering (Jim), etc.

Occasional letters in support or opposition of land management policies.

Probably other things, but that's all that comes to mind at the moment.

Ginny