The Dirt On Trail Operations

by Chris Binder Deputy Director

The pandemic has had a drastic effect on the 2020 trail construction and maintenance season on the Tahoe Rim Trail. Mitigating the risks of COVID-19 has meant a short season, reduced trail crew sizes, and detailed sanitation, screening, and distancing guidelines. Unfortunately, this resulted in fewer volunteer opportunities for the general by Chris Binder public to give back to the trail they love. Deputy Director While TRTA originally had over 100 volunteer trail crew events scheduled to be open to the public, in the end we only held about a quarter of that number this year. I apologize to those who were unable to come out with us this season, or were only able to come out for a fraction of the crew days they had hoped.

On the positive side, TRTA maintained trail crews in the field nearly continually between mid-June and the end of October, following our internal protocols (and those of our land management partners). Volunteer TRTA Crew Leaders have dedicated thousands of hours to trail construction projects in Van Sickle Bi-State Park and at Echo Summit, and Crew Leaders and general volunteers have done the same at Watson Lake. In addition, our Segment Coordinators have been leading crews to perform maintenance and tackle smaller projects on every segment of the trail, while youth crews and veteran volunteer crews have been hard at work rebuilding the collocated TRT and Pacific Crest Trail in northern Desolation Wilderness. 2020 also saw the inauguration of a new approach for the TRTA to getting good work done on the trail – the TRTA Staff Crew. This innovation has seen TRTA staff tackling dozens of projects large and small, spending over 2,000 hours improving the trail this summer. If you were lucky enough to spend time on the trail this year there is no doubt you benefited from new and improved signs, trail structures, and other work accomplished by TRTA staff and volunteers.

Unfortunately, a majority of projects scheduled in conjunction with our partners at the US Forest Service were put on hold this year as that agency focused on fighting wildfires and managing facilities in the face of the pandemic. However, as we look ahead to 2021 with reserved optimism that we will not face both a record-breaking wildfire season and a daunting new surge of the pandemic, there is hope to get those projects moving again. Important projects to improve trailhead signs and kiosks, campground facilities on and near the trail, and to finally fix the ditch through the trail along the Truckee Rivers are, among others, on our plate for 2021. We’ll need your help to do it, so thank you for supporting the TRTA.

Have a great winter, and we’ll see you out on the trail next year!