Interested in learning more about trail design and construction?  Wondering how to get more involved and contribute to the future of CAMBA and trails in our area?  If so, we’re looking for some motivated volunteers to step up and get involved as Trail Stewards for West Branch and Quail HollowState Park.

 Volunteering can be a very rewarding experience, by giving back to the trail that has served us so well over the years, and also helping others share in that same experience.  This opportunity with CAMBA is great for anyone who has interest to learn more about what’s involved with proper trail management, and what makes a good trail better.  Based on our experiences over the past 12 years, below is a description of what’s required for the new trail steward position.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Maintain and improve officially designated trails at parks where CAMBA is a registered volunteer organization.
• Work closely with park management to communicate all CAMBA activities and events, report volunteer hours, coordinate equipment use, trail closures, monitor and report on hunting seasons when applicable.
• Learn, adopt, and adhere to established IMBA standards for proper trailbuilding and maintenance techniques.
• Attend CAMBA meetings, contribute with ideas, report recent plans or upcoming events impacting CAMBA-maintained trails.
• Track volunteer hours for both trailbuilding and maintenance
• Assist CAMBA leadership with the identification, prioritization and scheduling of projects.
• Coordinate and manage trail days….including tool and equipment planning, safety review, addressing project scope and plan for each trail day, lunch planning, assist in the supervision and training of volunteers, tool use and appropriate techniques with all volunteers
• Coordinate with other CAMBA leaders on regular seasonal maintenance (trimming, downed trees, etc).
• Coordinate with Trail Director for seasonal trail plans, post regular articles about upcoming events and
• Help with maintenance of signage
• Engage the public with knowledge, enthusiasm and friendliness in a non-enforcing ‘volunteer’ capacity!

 Ideally, it would be very helpful if candidates also lived local to the trails at West Branch and Quail Hollow, in order to respond to any issues, as well as keep a close eye on trail conditions (updating our forum, etc).

If you don’t have the skills, that’s ok, because CAMBA will help provide training and education for this position.  As long as you can commit 5-15 hours a month (varies, depending on the season), and have the dedication to abide by designated standards for trailbuilding and maintenance, then this may be an good opportunity for you.

Sure, most of us all have full-time gigs somewhere else, but if you have some spare time to commit and get involved, and make a difference in thefuture of trails in our region, we’d like to talk to you.  Please send me an e-mail with a brief outline about your interest (trails ‘at’ camba.us).

We had a great turnout last Saturday at the West Branch trail day. It appears that everyone suffered from cabin fever and needed to get out on the trail, even if it was to dig in the dirt. And dig we did! Under the supervision of Tim Rhodes, we re-routed a rooty, sorta off camber section of trail. I was glad to see it go. Tim promises that he won’t underestimate the number of tools needed next time.

Food was provided last time by the good folks from the Bistro on Main located in Kent and we appreciate their kindness. Aaron, is a mtb racer and proprietor of the restaurant. Website is here. Please visit on your next night out and you won’t be disappointed! We hope to see them at a future trail day for sure!

Let’s keep the momentum ball rolling! We’ve scheduled another West Branch trail day on Saturday, 23rd and this time we’d like everyone to meet us at the other end of Cable Line Road. You can drive and park at this spot by going east on Hughes Road, the turning right (north) onto Porter Road. Keep driving until you see us at the end of Porter. As always, lunch will be provided.

A major toast to all the dedicated volunteers who helped Royalview become a reality for 2012!  What an amazing trail, and an ultra-dry season of primo riding to boot…..right?  But surprisingly, we’re not done out there yet…..and we’re starting off the fall trailbuilding season a little earlier this year, with plans to focus on specific projects at Royalview only (for now).

Working alongside our partners with Cleveland Metroparks (CMP), we plan to finish building the out-and-back loop, fixing/realigning some drifting lines and benches, and also help decommission some old unsustainable hiking trails that are getting long in the tooth! Wrapping up these open projects is a priority for us and CMP, with the goal to finish everything by the end of the year. This will free up CMP resources to focus on evaluating other reservations for possible trail access for next year!!!

So what’s the key for us??……that we’ll need everyone to show up and represent this fall!  That means anyone who has used this trail has no excuse this time around….hikers, bikers, runners, etc. If you can show up for 1 hour or 5 hours, doesn’t matter….just show up and learn, appreciate/respect what goes into proper trail construction, and contribute back!  We’ll work the weekend dates (see this LINK), and CMP will have some staff working on bridging and trail during the weekdays.  But the big effort to wrap things up will need to come from us, the volunteers! So spread the word….that we need all hands on deck this time……keeping in mind that Royalview is just the beginning — and not the end of new trails in our area!