[pct-l] Western Section R

Tue Jun 29 22:56:00 CDT 2021

Marmot, the trail is open to anyone and my experience has been that the trail is probably one of the least racist and most welcoming places you could find.  Sure there are always some jerks on the Facebook trail pages, but I think most of them are just trolls and not really hikers.  Please read the blog post on the PCTA's website by Crystal Gail Welcome posted June 19, 2021.  This is her opinion of the trail:  "the parks and trails that people built are based on racist ideologies and practices.  Meaning they are, at their core, institutional."  To me this is just gibberish.  How in the hell was the building of the PCT based on racist ideologies?  If she feels that way I don't understand why she would want to hike on the trail.  The worst part of the post was the PCTA's introduction saying that "we stand behind her and as a result, we will not allow commenting for this post on social media."  I guess the PCTA's CEO thinks she has the power to trump the 1st Amendment.  What are they afraid of, that someone will point out the fallacy of her comments?  It also makes the PCTA look foolish when they say "we stand behind her" when she makes a comment that the trail was based on racist ideologies.  

The issue is why does an organization that was formed to maintain the trail have to spend precious resources on things not related to trail maintenance?  If people want to promote the use of the trail by minorities, then they should form an organization whose stated purposes is to do just that.  More power to them.  The Articles of incorporation of the PCTA state that the purpose of the PCTA is "the maintenance, conservation, and safe public use of the PCT."  Somehow, under the current administration, and without a vote of the members, the original language is no longer used, but rather has been replaced by the "Mission Statement" which provides that the mission of the PCTA is to "protect, preserve, and promote the PCT."  You may think the change is trivial, but it is not.  It completely drops the reference to trail maintenance and adds promote which allows for all kinds of various things depending on your interpretation.

While it is true that some of the backlog of maintenance is due to the Covid-19 pandemic restricting trail work, it is really just a small part of the backlog.  It has been building up for years because there are not enough volunteers to do the work.  You probably are aware of this, but for those who are not, almost all of the maintenance on the trail is done by volunteers.  Why is it that the PCTA has no employees that actually do trail maintenance?  It has approximately 30 full time employees.  The problem is that the entire model that the PCTA has for maintenance is flawed.  They have full time employees for everything but maintenance but leave the maintenance, the thing the PCTA was formed to do, to volunteers.  Now the volunteers do an absolutely fantastic job given the enormous job that it is and the relatively small number of us considering how long the trail is.  Just to head off any comments about well why don't you get out there, I have been doing trail maintenance since 2008.  I am one of the crew leaders for the Cajon Pass Chapter of the Trail Gorillas.  In 2018 I was awarded the Extra Mile Award for "remarkable volunteer service."  In 2020 I had the 4th highest number of hours of trail maintenance on the entire trail with 716 hours, and that was in a year that we were prevented from working for a good portion of the year.  See PCT Communicator Spring 2021 edition, page 21.  I have hundreds of hours so far this year.  So I think I can speak about this with some authority.  I welcome your statement that "this is a time to build the trail or contribute financially,"  (I assume that by build you mean maintenance).  However it would take a 20 fold increase, maybe more, in the number of volunteers to get the job done and we just don't see it happening.  There are a lot of old timers that have retired from trail maintenance recently and they are not being replaced.  This is the reason for the overgrown trail in the Grider Creek area that David was talking about in the original post.  The guy who use to organize projects in that area retired and no one replaced him.   

Your suggestion about running for the Board of the PCTA would be a good one, except that the system is rigged.  Ever notice that each year when we vote for Directors the number of people nominated always exactly matches the number of vacancies?  That is because it is the current board that does the nominations.  It is a closed system.  If the current board doesn't like your positions then you just never get nominated.  The board is hand picked by Liz Bergeron the CEO.  The By Laws only allow for one other way to get nominated.  You have to circulate a petition and have at least 100 other members in good standing sign it.  Now how many of us know 100 other members well enough to be able to communicate with them and send them an email or a letter.  And even if you did get 100 signatures I can guaranty you that the current administration would undermine you.  The current board, with maybe one exception, consists of people who are not trail maintainers, but rather, in my opinion, want to pump up their resumes.   

Instead of looking for and standing behind people who want to trash talk the trail, the PCTA should declare a maintenance emergency and devote all its resources to getting the maintenance level of the trail back to an acceptable standard. 

I-Beam

-----Original Message-----
From: marmot marmot <marmotwestvanc at hotmail.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2021 5:08 PM
To: JimLBanks at verizon.net
Cc: pct-l at backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [pct-l] Western Section R

You’ve got to be kidding me. Since 1987, every time I was on any of the trails I wondered where the rest of the world went. No people of color.  Virtually every hiker out there was northern Euro decent and the vast majority male. That has just barely started to change. We should be celebrating the change not complaining (with no back up figures and statistics) that money is being diverted from trail maintenance to so -called extraneous expenses.  Each bit of education taught in a work place makes all us safer. It is not in any way unnecessary.  I saw the change in my industry.  I’m a painter in the Motion Picture Union so you can see what I mean. Understanding the issues makes all the difference in the world. 
I cheer every time I see the diversity of the hikers grow. I think it is magical. 

We have an over grown trail because of over a year of a challenging pandemic. It will take awhile to remedy. It’s hard in the meantime. It takes us all back in time when the trails weren’t finished and there were constant blow downs to crawl over. I walked through miles and miles of poison ivy and nettles that I had to beat back with my hiking stick on the AT in ‘91. The PCT ,in ‘94,luckily was finished but not very well maintained. I had ripped and repaired  hiking clothing from the needles in the  chaparral which covered hundreds of miles in southern Calif  Of course the CDT in ‘96 was just a southward ramble with map and compass hitting marked trail randomly about 1/3 of the way. I still feel lucky on each trail these days when the way is clear. I whine when they build stairs instead of switch backs. That’s just because I’m not a trail building expert and have to guess the reason for that is there might be a structural issue of which I am unaware. But,I still whine ‘ cause I hate stairs. I moan and complain every time I have to crawl over a downed tree. As my kid used to say when he was a teenager “ Oh Well !!”
I hope everyone remembers what the reality of why the trail maintenance is behind. We need to avoid inappropriate  transference from one practice( sensitivity training of all types that people often misunderstand and something that causes some people to be afraid) to a situation that has a different cause. We have all had to grow up and take a hard look at our preconceived ideas. 
This is a time to help build the trail or contribute to the PCTA financially. I’m sure there is a way to earmark a donation for trail maintenance only if you are worried. Ask the office. 
The other choice might be to run for the PCTA  board. I spend 16 years on the ALDHAWEST board. I didn’t alway agree with the final decisions by the board but at least I had input. Show up at PCT days. Help. Volunteer Hope to see you all at the next ALDHAWEST “in person” gathering or like I usually do—on some trail. I leave next week for my first long hike since this whole COVID mess started.
Can’t get the grin off my face
Marmot

Sent from my iPhone

> On Jun 29, 2021, at 2:34 PM, JimLBanks at verizon.net wrote:
> 
> David, the trail conditions you describe are becoming more and more common
> from one end of the trail to the other.  The original purpose of the PCTA
> was to maintain the trail.  However,  the PCTA has become an organization
> more concerned with "social justice" and sponsoring a hiker who writes on
> the PCTA blog that the trail itself was built "on racist ideologies and
> practices."  The PCTA gets almost $1 million a year from the US Forest
> Service to maintain the trail, but spends its money on more and more staff
> (none of which actually do trail maintenance as their job), fancy offices,
> and racial sensitivity training for the staff.  The trail maintenance
> volunteers are out there busting their asses working on the trail, but there
> are just not enough volunteers to get the job done, especially with all the
> damage done to the trail in the last 10 years or so from so many huge
> devasting fires.
> 
> 
> 
> I-Beam 
> 
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