Editor’s note: This article is written by Riley Frackleton, RFMBA’s Program Coordinator for the past three years. Riley recently moved out of the valley to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he surely is shredding some awesome trails. Here in the Roaring Fork Valley and in the RFMBA he will be sorely missed! We wish Riley the best. Given his passion and dedication to anything he commits to we believe whatever he does in the future will surely be successful. Good luck Riley and may the trail ahead forever in your favor!
Trail Agents made huge strides in 2025! When I first joined RFMBA over 3 years ago, we only had 250 hours reported from our Trail Agents from an entire season. Now, this is our second year seeing over 1,000 hours in a single season. The independent work of our Trail Agents is extremely valuable not just to RFMBA so that we can leverage these hours to help us get more funding from more diversified sources, but also to the entire trail-using community throughout the entire Roaring Fork Valley!
Now for our top reporters!
- Luke Murphy – 27 reports for 147 hours of work
- Bill Schoenecker – 28 reports for 105 hours of work
- Ben Mays – 4 reports for 64 hours of work
- Keith Teahan – 10 reports for 61 hours of work
- Bryan Gall – 9 reports for 53 hours of work
- Andrew Reed – 3 reports for 49 hours of work
- Stephen Glass – 5 reports for 49 hours of work
- Jim Andersen – 5 reports for 40 hours of work
- Erik Obermeyer – 13 reports for 40 hours of work
- Wesley Toews – 6 reports for 24 hours of work
*(One additional shoutout to one of our Board Members, Trent Mahaffey, for throwing down some crazy hours in his Trail Agent role this season as well!)
For a little bit more perspective on how crucial all of your hard work is to the condition, quality, and safety of our region’s trails, the Seasonal Trail Crew (our full-time paid staff) cleared less than 1/4 as many trees as all of you Trail Agents this season! Our trails would be in a lot worse shape if not for all of our Trail Agents!
If you know someone who may want to get involved next season, send them to our
Trail Agent page on our website to find out more about this awesome program. We’ll have more in-person training sessions planned come late February or early March.
From everyone at RFMBA, thank you all for an amazing season of trail work!
Lastly, this is my farewell to you all and to the Roaring Fork Valley. I’ve loved being a part of RFMBA and seeing it grow tremendously over the past few years. For all of you who I have met along the way, it’s been amazing sharing your enthusiasm for the trails of this very special place. I just moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, so there won’t be any shortage of exceptional trails up here! Ride on, and happy trails!
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/
Let’s all give one last big THANK YOU to all active Trail Agents last year. This is just one of RFMBA’s most important and most impactful programs. We had a highly productive year! Bravo to all.
