Thames Valley Trail Association, Trail Maintenance WebSite

To Assist in the Organization of Trail Maintenance Outings

                                  How This Works

The trail is divided into 16 sections, each with a Trail Captain [TC]. The TC's responsibility is to hike their section twice each year - once in the early Spring and then again in the late Summer - and to report to the Trail Maintenance [TM] Director what needs to be done. The TM Director goes thru the reports, divides up the work as blazing, mowing & trimming, bridge & boardwalk building and maintenance, and work requiring a chainsaw. Bob McGee [Dr. Blaze] handles updating worn out trail blazes, the chainsaw team handles that work, the B&B team takes care of the bridges and boardwalks, and the rest of us mainly take care of mowing and trimming, cleanup of winter deadfall, etc.


You are welcome to help out with any of these teams, including being a trail captain. We are currently planning to open up new trail sections so we anticipate needing more trail captains.

We have traditionally scheduled trail maintenance outings for some weekday evenings meeting at 6:30 PM ending before dark, and for some Saturday mornings meeting at 9:00 AM ending by noon. This year we will continue that tradition. We dress for TM the same as for a hike, including bringing a bottle of water. I always show up at the meeting place regardless of the weather; then i decide if we will go or not.

The Spring edition of the Trekker covers the period from the beginning of April to the end of June. The Activities Schedule in that Trekker indicates which weekdays and Saturdays in May and June will be used for TM. The July, September and October dates will be in the Summer and Fall Trekkers. Currently we do no TM during the month of August.

What I do a couple or a few weeks ahead of time is get on the e-mail and telephone and line up 4 volunteers for each outing. I go on all the outings myself and sometimes the Trail captain will come along, so the team is usually 5 or 6 people. I bring along to the meeting place the tools needed for the work of the day including new work gloves for each participant, and perhaps a box of TimBits - it is, after all, a work party! It is really helpful if people very early on use this site or phone or e-mail to volunteer for specific dates. That saves a lot of time on the phone and I really appreciate that a lot. It is useful to volunteer even several weeks ahead of time if you can.

So, please volunteer. If you wish to indicate area[s] of interest you may do that as well. Thank you in advance for volunteering to help with this important work.

Mike Dawdy
TVTA Trail Maintenance