Article by: Emily Karmy, CHES
Est. reading time: 2 minutes
What is Skagit Trail Builders?
Skagit Trail Builders is a volunteer organization focused on building and maintaining multi-use trails and advocating for their connection to surrounding schools, parks, downtowns, and neighborhoods. Their mission is to create trails for Skagit County residents and its visitors to get outside and walk, run, and bike for fun, recreation, transportation, and health.
Over the years, Skagit Trail Builders has adapted and grown to serve their community. Before they were known as Skagit Trail Builders, they spent over seven years and 14,000 volunteer hours building and maintaining seven miles of multi-use trails at Little Mountain Park in Mount Vernon, WA. In recent years, they have been building and maintaining trails in Northern State Recreation Area in Sedro-Woolley, WA. Over the past two years, volunteers constructed the Dovetail Bridge and built over a mile of new trail, amassing nearly 2,000 hours.
Continuing to Blaze New Trails During COVID-19
Right as momentum seemed to be building, the COVID-19 pandemic hit with full force in March of 2020, forcing Skagit Trail Builders to put their public sessions on hold. But the volunteers who run Skagit Trail Builders are not ones to shy away from a challenge. With funding from the Serve Washington Volunteer Generational Fund grant and assistance from District 304 they worked to develop new strategies and safety guidelines which would allow trail building sessions to be reopened to the public in a new way. The funding from Serve Washington also provided Skagit Trail Builders an opportunity to launch a Facebook page designed to reach a broader audience, including more youth, with updates and opportunities. The page launched in July of 2020 and has reached over 10,000 users since and has even led to three new volunteers!
With new safety guidelines in place, volunteer sessions resumed on October 10th. These special sessions are now held twice a month with small groups of volunteers and safety protocols. Since the return of volunteer sessions, half of the Pumphouse Trail at Northern State Recreation Area has been completed and they expect to finish the trail early this year.
Check out the progress they’ve made so far in this
virtual tour video.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Skagit Trail Builders has several exciting projects and opportunities on the horizon for 2021. Be sure to follow their Facebook page and blog to stay up to date.