The Life of a Trail
Building and maintaining trails takes hours of hard labor and careful training by highly trained crews. This mostly unseen workforce is part of the lifeblood of public land.
Updated:
Mar 18, 2025Table of contents
The hot summer sun beats down as beads of sweat trickle down our faces and backs. Our dirt-stained shirts are damp with sweat. I am leading a trail crew on the west side of Glacier National Park. The crew I’m leading repairs and builds single-track trails, clears trees and assesses and mitigates the impacts of wildfires, floods, and other natural events that change the character of our trail system on public lands. This involves not only physical labor but also strategic planning and risk assessment. At least 236,000 miles of trail wind their way through state and federal public land across the country. Our crew is just one of the hundreds of trail crews in the United States working to keep these trails in shape.
A trail is an invitation—an invitation to explore and be enraptured by nature’s wonders. So much money, time, effort, blood, and sweat goes into maintaining paths through wild places, and so much takes place behind the scenes, like lining up grants and volunteers. The job description states that trail crew members work in varying weather and terrain, lift heavy things, hike long distances with packs and tools, and perform physical labor constructing and maintaining trails. A day in the life of a trail artist can vary greatly. And few people consider the time, effort, and art of how a trail is born and maintained on state, federal, and private lands.
This particular crew is small—there are only three of us—but in my 13 years of experience building and maintaining remote trails, I’ve seen crews ranging from two people to groups 20 strong or even larger. The trail here is marshy and wet, and hikers have expanded the trail's footprint to go around a giant mud puddle. We’re elevating the trail with a log turnpike, a wooden rectangular box that elevates hikers above the soggy meadow, allows water to drain, and prevents people from causing more damage to the fragile wetland. As a finishing touch, we take turns crushing rock with 5- and 10-pound sledgehammers to fill the wood boxes with gravelly pebbles that make walking easier. These are just a few of the many techniques that make trails passable and pleasant to hikers, horses, and other users.
Blisters bubble forth in our red, hot hands. We spread our legs like a baseball hitter and slightly bend our knees before lifting the handle to our sides. My right hand follows the weighted steel sledge end before sliding back down to rest and grip the handle as I swing the hammer above my head. As I smash rock, shrapnel zings by my ears and the protected eyes of my co-workers. The air smells of pulverized stone, sappy alpine firs, and soil exposed from the blanket of snow that covers this high country most of the year. Our dedication and hard work are a testament to our commitment to maintaining these trails for the enjoyment of all.
Early History
I tell new crew members that new trails are seldom created on public lands. Most have been here decades—or, in some cases, millennia. Some trails on the landscape were old pathways of Indigenous people connecting one place to another. Many of America’s trails on public lands were built during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal Era when he created the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. From 1933 to 1942, it put over three million young men to work improving and conserving America’s public lands. CCC workers planted over 2.3 billion trees and constructed 126,000 miles of roads and trails through our National Forests.
Since then, our public lands system has evolved into America’s National Trails System, an adventure tapestry stretching over 90,000 miles. It includes 11 National Scenic Trails, 19 National Historic Trails, 1,300 National Recreation Trails, and seven side and connecting trails. The Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, our nation’s first National Scenic Trails, are just the beginning of this vast network. At least an additional 100,000 miles of other trails—lacking that official “National Trail” designation—wind their way through our public land, too. This webwork is not just a collection of trails but a testament to the power of partnerships in trail maintenance and construction, bringing together different organizations and individuals to preserve and enhance our outdoor spaces.
The Builders
Federal Agencies: Land management agencies from the National Park Service to the U.S. Forest Service hire crews dedicated to building and maintaining all over the country.
Conservation Corps: More than 20,000 people a year—mostly young people and veterans—are employed by Conservation Corps all over the country. Their work ranges from habitat restoration to fuels reduction, but also includes trail work. In 2023, those crews worked on more than 15,000 miles of trail.
Local User Groups: From local Land Trusts to wilderness advocacy organizations to specific user groups like the Access Fund and local mountain bike clubs, hundreds of local NGOs work to maintain trails across the country.
My Experience
I began my trail-building career in the California Conservation Corps in 2001, camping for six months in the Trinity Alps Wilderness of Northern California. My work has since taken me to northwestern Montana and Big Bend National Park at the opposite end of the country, down in southwest Texas. I love being a trail artist, going to wild places, and serving the country and the world.
“Hand-built trail construction is backbreaking work,” says Bobby Grillo, Conservation Corps Director for the Montana Conservation Corps. That organization employs 14 seasonal field staff and around 250-275 AmeriCorps members each summer to work on thousands of miles of trails within the state. “Every piece of trail that we enjoy is built by the hands of hardy people, wielding picks, shovels, rock bars, axes, chainsaws, and Pulaskis, and we all should be grateful we’re able to walk on these trails that improve our well-being.”
Earlier that season in Glacier, our trail crew embarked on an early-season journey through a burnt forest. A wildfire had ravaged this area the previous year, leaving a haunting landscape of charred trees. Our mission for that day was to clear the trail of fallen trees and other hazards and to assess the extent of the damage the fire caused. As we trekked through the first mile, we encountered a wooden bridge that spanned an unnamed creek. We meticulously inspected the 30-foot bridge stringers that hold the bridge up, the sill logs, the handrails, and the planks, searching for dangerous cracks or splits to see if anything needed replacement. Surprisingly, the sprinkler system set up by the fire crews had shielded the bridge from serious harm. This natural disaster is just one example of the many challenges we face in maintaining trails, from dealing with erosion to fallen trees to natural disasters. These disasters, such as fires and floods, not only damage the trails but also pose a significant risk to the safety of hikers and the delicate balance of the ecosystem.
The new vistas captivate me as the trail meanders through the scorched forest. The fire reveals the U-shaped McDonald and Mineral valleys, with the majestic Livingston Range and its glacier horns and hanging valleys. Once dense and obstructing, the forest now offers little shade. This geological wonderland, with its ancient limestone, sandstone, and shale—some of the oldest known sedimentary rocks in the world—bears the marks of the shallow Precambrian-age Belt Sea. To the Blackfoot Confederacy, these mountains are the backbone of the world. Many of our national parks and forests were home to numerous Indigenous cultures and still bear profound importance to them today.
The Work
As we headed up the trail, I explained to the other members that we were looking for trees, branches, brush, or anything encroaching into the trail corridor. We aim to have the trail free of obstructions, 10 feet high for packers riding horses and eight feet wide for mules carrying loads. We also evaluate the tread to ensure a steady grade, which should climb by five to 18 feet for every 100 feet walking forward. The trail should only gain that steepness when there’s no other way around the topography. If the trail gets over 20-percent slope, a few drains with waterbars will be installed. Waterbars are wood or rock checks placed in the trail at a 45-degree angle to divert water off the trail and buried two-thirds in the ground. As trail builders, our perpetual antagonists are the interactions of gravity and water, which can wreak havoc on singletrack. As we slowly walk the path, we scrutinize the landscape for erosion caused by streaming water, uprooted trees from avalanches, floods, and fires, and spots where water pools.
After a fire sweeps through an area, it often leaves behind trees whose roots are burned away, leaving the tread holding the slope undermined, weakened, or gone entirely. We all pause at a spot where the tread is very narrow for the next 20 yards. I pull out some flagging and mark the section. We will return here with picks, Pulaskis, and shovels to dig tread to make it a three to four-foot-wide walking surface. When trails fade or get overgrown, hikers wander every which way, creating a zigzagging chaos of pathways or trampling plants and dirt that play an essential role here. Our work here, though challenging, is crucial in preserving the integrity of the trail for future hikers and helping to keep people on the path. Our trails provide hikers a safe and enjoyable experience and significantly protect the environment. It's a responsibility we all take seriously and drives us to do our best daily, knowing that our efforts contribute to preserving these natural wonders.
As we continue onward, water streams down the trail from all the snow melt up high, eroding a gully. The trail ahead leads through the creek, but the creek washed away 10 feet of tread on both sides during runoff. We mark this spot to return to a few weeks later. The only way to create tread and retain the trail in this section with a steep uphill slope above the trail is to sink two gabions, four-foot square wire baskets filled with rocks and soil to help prevent further erosion and create a walking surface four feet below the tread on either side of the creek.
Later in the season, we return. We find a straight tree with the dimensions we need, and one of my crew members places a wedge-shaped face cut into the tree and yells, “Back cut! Falling!” The blackened tree falls, and he spends the next few minutes removing its limbs with his saw. He then removes the bark using hand peelers and measures the dimensions for multiple projects.
In some places, we use wood for projects—sourced from right here, where we’re working; in others, we use rock because of its longevity. If done right, rock work will last thousands of years, like the Inca Trail. Rock is fun to work with but requires great patience and skill. We shape the rock with single-jack hammers that weigh more than 2 pounds each. Trail artists look for a rock that is easy to build off on two or even three sides, and the next rock placed against it has good height or consistent contact so the rocks won’t move or roll. We look for rocks that, when placed next to each other, will form a consistent line across the trail. We ensure the top of the rock has a good walking surface and won’t trip people up. One crewmember is setting a rock when he accidentally smashes his fingers between two rocks like a ketchup packet. Accidents like this are just regular hazards we accept. Once we shape the rock, we get it in the ground, flat side out. We use 10-15 pound steel rock/spud bars to move large rocks out of the trail and for building. Sometimes, this requires using the bar to fulcrum the rock so we can get it to sit right, then place crushed rock so it solidly sits and is easy to build off. These rock bars can move rocks that weigh hundreds of pounds. After we complete the rock work, we give it a good kick, which is good practice to ensure mules and hikers won’t kick it loose.
On the next eight-day hitch, another crew joins our crew to tackle a larger project. The trail zigzags back and forth up the hillside, gaining a consistent grade as it climbs above treeline. Mountains loom above and overlook our small endeavors. Crews often join forces or bring in volunteer groups, if scheduled far in advance, to help with large projects that are grander and more time-consuming for a two-person crew. Federal, state, county and city governments fund thousands of people and volunteer groups who help upkeep and maintain trails. Data on the overall number of trail workers in the country is hard to come by. However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 10,900 forest and conservation workers in the U.S. in 2023—many of whom were on trail crews like mine. Conservation corps around the country also employ at least 22,000 young people and veterans who work on trails and perform vital work on public lands across the country. I know folks well who have made a lifestyle out of trail work and worked well into their 60s. According to the data, the majority of the workforce is male, but more and more women have joined trail crews in the last several years; some crews are all women.
How To Trail Build
Building trails is a technical trade and requires a great deal of on-the-ground know-how. That said, if you’re curious to learn the basics, there are resources to learn more. Start out with the Forest Service Trail Construction and Maintenance Notebook. This handy guide details everything from the tools of the trade to rock work and drainage. For mountain bikers specifically, the International Mountain Bicycling Association publishes a guide of their own for MTB-specific uses, which differ slightly from your general-purpose single-track.
Behind the Scenes
Usually, routine maintenance is all that is needed to keep trails open for public access. Conversely, the vast majority of new trails are built on private land, and once you get your layout dialed, it becomes time to start building. Contractors help with design, layout, and construction. On federal land, a thorough environmental analysis of public land is conducted through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. This involves numerous steps, including identifying the issues to be addressed, evaluating potential environmental effects, and soliciting the public to get involved to ensure the proposed trail construction is environmentally sound. Many agency specialists will analyze the project's impacts during this process and make some recommendations before progressing.
Nonprofit groups and trail supervisors do a lot of work behind the scenes, often writing grants to pay for trail maintenance on public and private lands. Once projects are approved and funded, it is vital to get outside when laying out new trails. While using mapping software to sketch a general route or line is important, ground-truthing the topography’s nuances is even more essential.
“I can’t tell you how many times a line or idea drawn on the map was rendered ridiculous during ground-truthing,” says Clifford Kipp, executive director of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation.
Out in the field, planners capitalize on all of the subtle features that the terrain affords when designing a trail's flow, from aesthetics to how the trail will blend into the landscape. They also consider wider trail corridors depending on the user group, such as hikers, horses, mountain bikers, or all-terrain vehicles.
The Threats
The country’s trail system requires a thriving workforce to maintain it. From improving water drainage to getting rid of windblown dead trees that block passage, making trails free and enjoyable to the public takes backbreaking grit and toil. For years, federal trail crews have been understaffed and underfunded. Lately, the problem has gotten a lot worse. In the case of the Forest Service, budget woes meant the agency wasn’t able to hire seasonals for the 2025 season. Worse yet, the agency is facing cuts of thousands of workers under the current administration. You can read more about how to take a stand for our public lands here.
The Value of Partnerships
Partner groups like land trusts, conservation corps, and volunteer groups are the backbone of trail maintenance, bringing passion, expertise, and skill to developing and implementing projects on public lands. Our land management agencies are usually understaffed and overworked (for more on this, see our article on How We Fund Our Public Lands), so competent partner groups can significantly enhance the ability to get work done on the ground. Building partnerships requires trust-building from both parties, but when partnerships come off well, they can add tremendous value to the recreation resource, reassuring us that our trails are in good hands.
You don't have to be a trail professional to get involved with maintaining, building, and improving our trail systems. Local land trusts and other conservation groups often organize volunteer days where regular folks can get involved and volunteer to build trails for a day, a weekend, or even a week.
“Anyone can stomp in a trail to get from A to B, but a trail experience is worth spending time considering, cultivating, and crafting,” says Kipp. “It’s an art form worth approaching with patience. Like a sculptor releases form from a block, a trail can be unveiled from the landscape to emerge as a thing of beauty, providing a connection to nature, to us, and each other.”
This past spring, my wife and I hiked in Utah’s Canyonlands. I couldn’t help but notice and appreciate all the hard work that went into the trail system leading into the canyon—hundreds of rock steps placed perfectly like a spiral staircase, allowing hikers to descend thousands of feet. The sheer time it took to put in boggles the mind. After working for nearly a decade and a half building trails, I will never look at a hand-built trail the same way. I still catch myself reminiscing about all the times I would pause after some hard manual labor, take pride in the crews' work, feel a connection with each other and the land, and take the time to revel in the beauty we added to the natural environment.
Benjamin Alva Polley is a former trail builder, naturalist, and place-based storyteller whose stories have appeared in Audubon, Esquire, Field & Stream, The Guardian, Outside, Popular Science, Sierra, and more. He holds a Master’s in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism from the University of Montana. You can learn more about Benjamin by visiting his website.
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