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- [Narrator] The wild, untouched beauty
of the Northern Cascade Mountain range.
Rugged and beautiful.
This beauty does not come without the hard work
of the men and women of the trails.
Their tireless work keeps our trails safe
and accessible for all of us to enjoy.
From moving ground to the large rocks
that dot these landscapes,
we owe much to these hard-working individuals
who have shaped our trails for the past 100 years.
(old music)
- Hey everybody, thanks for coming out today.
My name's LeeAnne.
I'm going to be your WTA crew leader for the day.
- Hi LeeAnne. - Hello.
- What is the WTA?
- [LeeAnne] So Washington Trails Association
is a non-profit powered by hikers
basically engaging and advocating for trails.
- So are volunteers responsible
for all the trail maintenance?
- [LeeAnne] Our land manager partners
are actually responsible for all of the trails,
however their budgets have been
severely declining in the last few years.
So it really does mean a lot for us
to have volunteers come out and work with us
on the trails to keep them maintained.
Got some folks out wearing orange hats.
They're going to be our assistant crew leaders,
going to be kind of managing our smaller projects
once we get on to the trail.
- I'm just going to go ahead and take that and move it out -
- [Colin] Trail maintenance. - [Kelsi] Nice.
It's a good thing we have a leader
and it's not just freeform clearing.
- [Colin] Right, because this would all be gone.
- Will you be telling us what we're
supposed to remove and what not to?
- [LeeAnne] Yes, absolutely. - Okay.
- I am so excited to use these clippers.
I just want to snip something.
- Anna hiking just shouldn't bring a...
- [LeeAnne] Nope. - ..brush clearer.
- Just freestyling. - This looks fun!
- This tree's coming down. - Yeah.
- [LeeAnne] It's definitely very guided
when you come out here, yes.
- [Elena] Oh good. - Yes.
- [Kelsi] So, how do you get into this work?
How do you find out about volunteer opportunities?
- Basically on wta.org, there's a calendar
and you can see all the work parties going on statewide.
- Oh, wow. - Ooh.
- [LeeAnne] So you can select day trips,
we do Backcountry response teams,
which are four to five days.
And then we do volunteer vacations, which are weeklongs.
- Oh.
- [LeeAnne] So, generally anybody is welcome
to sign up, no experience necessary.
- Lock and load.
- [Anna] What type of stuff are we doing on the trails?
- [LeeAnne] Basically, the name of the game today
is going to be some maintenance stuff.
And we're going to do a bit of rock work.
And we're going to do some brushing and some drainage.
(upbeat music)
- [Anna] Do you have to have any experience
with tools or outdoor work or anything?
- [LeeAnne] Nope, we teach you everything you need to know.
- This is great because I don't do any yard work, usually.
- Okay.
- Hey, watch where you're swinging that -
what's your tool called?
- [Elena] That thing looks like fun.
- One, two, three.
- Oh. - Oh wow!
- Sounds like a lot of core...
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- ...like, strength.
How strenuous of a day can we expect?
- [LeeAnne] I mean, it's definitely very physical.
(deep breath)
- [Anna] You guys did that!
- Yeah! - Nice work!
- The key is the legs.
- That may not have been in my legs.
- [LeeAnne] Usually, we try to offer a variety of work
so once you get physically tired from one task,
you can move to something else, for sure.
- Sure they need an orange peeler, or something.
- [Anna] Yeah. - [LeeAnne] Right.
- [Elena] Yeah!
- [LeeAnne] Some folks joke that WTA is 'we talk a lot'.
- [Anna] Yep. - [Elena] That is our group.
- [Anna] Yep.
- We're all about that action, boss.
- So we came to the right,
- we came to the right volunteer group.
- [Anna] We are prepared. - [Colin] Yeah.
- Alright, let's go to the trail, guys.
- Okay. - Tally ho!
- Gotta clear this brush.
- [LeeAnne] Alright, so this is going to be
our work spot for the day.
What we're looking at here is basically
a lot of drainage issues, so those rocks
that are kind of sloughing downhill is a good indicator
of water on the trail coming this way.
So what we're going to try to do is actually
build a rock wall from this rock
back to the rocks coming off of our bridge structure
and kind of tie it all into one.
First and foremost, we need to kind of clear away
a good landing pad, so we're going to have to do
a good amount of excavating.
(rock music)
- [Colin] Incoming.
- [LeeAnne] That's a good idea.
- Got it!
- [LeeAnne] Once we have a good base,
we'll go and get some nice big rocks
to fill this project up.
- [Colin] Sweet.
- Nice. - Cool.
- [LeeAnne] Sound like fun?
- Yeah! - [LeeAnne] Cool.
(rock music)
- Gotcha!
You guys!
Found one.
- [Colin] How's it look down there?
Oh, I think this is the one.
- [Kelsi] This might be the one.
- [Elena] So how do you know which rocks make good rocks?
- [LeeAnne] Well, so, the one we're looking at
has really flat sides to it.
- [Elena] Big flat rocks?
- [LeeAnne] For sure.
Nice.
- [Elena] Let's get it, guys.
(clapping)
- It's okay.
- [Elena] Move!
- [All] That!
- [Elena] Boulder!
- [Anna] Yep.
- [Anna] Leg press. - [Colin] Nice!
- [Kelsi] Yep. - [Elena] Yeah, nice!
- [Anna] Yes! - [All] Yeaaah!
- So we need how many of these to fill that one spot?
- This is one of 25. - Two layers.
- Anybody not ready?
- [Elena] One, two, three!
- [Anna] Nice!
- [Elena] And let's move.
- [Colin] And we're walking.
- We're rocking.
- [Elena] Okay, down, three, two, one, down.
- Yeah! - Nice!
- We only have 50 more meters to go.
- That's fine.
(rock music)
(rocks falling)
- [Elena] Is that to kind of make it look like
natural over there?
- [Worker] Yeah, basically.
- [Anna] You guys, this looks awesome.
- [Colin] What a wall.
Nicely done everybody.
- [Elena] Nice job everyone!
- Awesome. Good work. - Well done.
- [Kelsi] Looks great.
(crowd conversing)
- [Elena] I have mad respect for WTA now.
- [Anna] Yeah. - [Colin] Yeah.
- Wow.
- [Anna] Well that was a delightful day.
- [Colin] Whew.
- [Anna] I'm a little toasted though.
- [Colin] What a day.
- [Elena] That was awesome.
- [Anna] Well, I am ready for a burger.
- [Colin] Yeah.
You guys, uh, you think anybody will find
that Tamagotchi I left back there?
- [Anna] Definitely not. - [Kelsi] Tamagotchi?
- [Elena] You left a Tamagotchi back there?
- [Colin] Yeah, I woke up this morning,
realized I hadn't fed it in 12 years,
and thought, oh, you know what might be nice? (laughing)
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