Between our Seasonal Trail Crew and our Trail Agents, we saw 5,732 hours of trail love in 2024! Let’s break down those statistics a little bit further so we can appreciate just how much work our seasonal staff and independent volunteers put into our trails last season!
RFMBA’s year-round staff hires, trains, and manages our Seasonal Trail Crew to perform basic trail maintenance, improve trails and trailheads, and in limited cases, assist with new trail build projects. The crew’s program of work focuses broadly on high-use frontcountry trails and remote backcountry trails open to mountain bikes. During 2024, the crew size ranged from 2 to 7 members from late April through October. RFMBA is always aiming to diversify funding sources for the program, ensuring its long term sustainability. Here’s what the Seasonal Trail Crew accomplished in 2024:
Drainages are generally a longer-term maintenance need, while corridor work is needed much more often. Of the 95 days of crew work this past season, 54 of those days (over half) contained some sort of corridor clearing, in addition to other tasks. 38 of those 95 days (40%) were purely corridor work. This also includes trees clearing and it was certainly a big year for downed trees on our region’s trails. Our Crew more than doubled the number of trees they cleared as compared to the prior season – 213 more trees than in 2023!
The new Buck Down trail on the Crown was built mostly by volunteers, but our Seasonal Trail Crew still played a very big part in completing the trail last summer. From fine-tuning jumps to testing the turns for maximum fun and efficiency, the Trail Crew was there to make it happen. They also served as leaders at our many Buck Down volunteer events, making sure everyone was digging safely and that the vision of the trail was being realized.
Lastly, we want to emphasize how valuable our collaborative work with the Forest Service was this past season. Due to budget cuts, land management agencies – especially federal ones like the US Forest Service – are increasingly unable to provide the intensive, consistent monitoring and maintenance required to keep trails accessible for all users. The Aspen Sopris Ranger District does have an amazing trail crew but their resources are limited and a lot of their time is spent on multi-use or hiking-only trails throughout the White River National Forest. We are so grateful that their crew was able to dedicate 7 of their work days to collaborating with RFMBA’s Seasonal Trail Crew, often on more strenuous drainage construction projects. Not to mention, they’re all mountain bikers as well, so their eye for what rides well was much appreciated!
To learn more about our Seasonal Trail Crew Program, visit RFMBA.org/seasonal-trail-crew-program/
RFMBA’s Trail Agent Program trains and empowers volunteers to perform basic trail maintenance (mostly corridor clearing) on their own time, with tasks and time reported through our online reporting systems. Many of these independent volunteers are bringing a handsaw with them on their rides or hikes, reporting on the maintenance needs they see or (more often) doing the work themselves. They are just as responsible as our Seasonal Trail Crew for clearing fallen trees and overgrowth, and their work can also inform where our Crew heads to next. Here’s what Trail Agents accomplished in 2024:
Starting in 2023, RFMBA put more of an emphasis on the Trail Agent Program, with the goal of increasing hours significantly. Since 2022, we have seen a 300% increase in the number of hours reported by our Trail Agents, making 2024 our biggest year yet! We also saw an increase in the number of trees cleared from trails by Trail Agents from 2023 to 2024 – 54 more to be exact. That’s 672 trees cleared in our region between Trail Agents and our Seasonal Trail Crew! Imagine our trails without all this work! You’d be dismounting your bike a whole lot more.
To learn more about our Trail Agent Program, check out: RFMBA.org/trail-agent-program/
You can contact riley@rfmba.org to start your training today, or get on the list for in-person group training sessions coming this spring. We will be hosting a training session at 6:00pm on Tuesday, April 8th at Colorado Drifters Cafe & Down Valley Brewing in New Castle. Sign-up to be published soon. Additional in-person training likely in Carbondale, details TBD.
Let’s all give one last big THANK YOU to all staff members of our 2024 Seasonal Trail Crew and to all active Trail Agents last year. These are two of RFMBA’s most important and most impactful programs. We had a highly productive year between them and we are so excited to see them both improve and grow in 2025!
