Our 2025 Field Season
Trail Maintenance is the
To prepare for thru-hikers and other visitors each summer, PNTA coordinates teams of professional, student, and volunteer crews from across our trail community. As one of America’s youngest national scenic trails, these trail crew workers have the opportunity to build the foundations of a legacy that future generations will travel on for years to come.
Performance Trail Crews
PNTA Performance Trail Crews are a part of an in-house conservation corps program that perform over 80% of trail maintenance on the Pacific Northwest Trail. This program breaks down traditional barriers to inclusion in the outdoors by providing wages, all food and transportation for the summer, and valuable training and certifications that are essential for careers in public land management. Crew members have the opportunity to do meaningful work and camp out in spectacular wild places for up eight days at a time.
Volunteers
Joining a PNTA Volunteer party can create a lasting impact on the PNT that will help to preserve access and promote conservation for years to come. Volunteers have opportunities to support the PNT through individual citizen science opportunities, trail scouting, submitting photography or joining a trail crew on a traditional 8-day long hitch. If you’re interested in joining the efforts, explore our volunteering opportunities at: https://www.pnt.org/volunteer-events/.
Curious where PNTA Trail Crews are working May through October?
Explore this interactive map to learn about our work to protect and enhance the PNT during our 2025 Field Season.
The North Cascades Region
In Western Washington, our performance crews work everywhere from Whatcom County to the North Cascades to the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. In that wide span of trail, the trail crews focus on building turnpikes, reconstructing washed out sections of trail and clearing logs.
Tread repair is essential in a location such as Western Washington that gets a steady influx of rain and snow every year. Our trail crews help to combat the constant erosion to the PNT by building wooden structures to hold rock and dirt fill to reestablish elevated, durable walking surfaces that last longer through the elements and drain properly.
Providing a lasting trail elevates user experience, helps direct trail users towards the most scenic parts of the PNT, and preserves fragile environments from visitor use impact. Puncheons built by our trail crews allow sensitive streams and riparian habitats to thrive. Reconstructed sections of trail allow trail users to enjoy alpine meadows from a distance so that they will continue to bloom every year. Performance trail crews are essential for a preserving lasting pathway through the beautiful wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.
Thank you Claudia, Emma, Isabel, Ray, Alora, Tryg, Myles, and Ellie!
Recent Trail Stewardship Events in the North Cascades
Volunteer Events
There are plenty of opportunities to get involved with the Pacific Northwest Trail Association! From individual citizen science opportunities to traditional work trips, there is a way to fit volunteering into any schedule.
Independent Volunteering Opportunities
This year, the PNTA started several new citizen science initiatives such as Sword Fern Health Mapping and White Bark Pine Mapping. During these citizen science opportunities, volunteers could hike on their own schedules and report on the presence (or absence) of these species along the trail.
The PNTA also offers trail scouting opportunities. With over 300 trail segments to monitor and maintain, volunteers become our eyes and ears across the PNT. Trail scouting reports let us know about areas of trail which are overgrown with brush, blocked by downed trees, or have erosion problems.
Overnighters
This summer, volunteers joined the PNTA on an overnight trip in Mazama. The two day project focused on trail maintenance as they worked their way from Mazama Camp towards Bell Pass. Backpacking with the PNTA is a great opportunity to try out trail maintenance for the first time as well as go on a guided backpacking trip with other hikers who are passionate about trails!
SWITMO Partner
From repairing washed out sections of turnpikes to hauling up gravel to fill in eroded sections of trail — the Skagit Whatcom Island Trail Maintenance Organization has been an incredible partner to the PNTA this season! SWITMO leads volunteering outings on most weekends in Western Washington, ranging from popular locations like Oyster Dome to Anderson Mountain. Thank you SWITMO!
Corporate Partners
PNTA had several group volunteer outings this season including helpful volunteers from Boeing, Western Michigan Academy of Environmental Science and Whole Foods. Each group got to experience brushing trail, maintaining tread and even pulling on a crosscut saw with the guidance of certified sawyers. Volunteering with your company is a great way to build camaraderie among co-workers and foster a love for the preserving the outdoors together. Thank you for joining us on the trail!
Recent PNTA Volunteer Events
Pasayten Wilderness
In the rugged landscape of the Pasayten Wilderness, our trail crews carve a path through the wilderness for trail users to enjoy. With the help of the Backcountry Horsemen, our performance crews are able to get deeper into the wilderness by using mules to transport resupplies, tools and materials needed to build puncheons, turnpikes and other infrastructure on trail.
Due to the fires in the Pasayten Wilderness, there are often plenty of blowdowns for the crew to clear. Throughout this season, the crew cleared 496 logs! This makes traveling on trail significantly easier for equestrians, hikers and other trail users. Accessible trails are essential emergency response personnel — as both first responders to locate injured persons and wildland firefighters use them to gain proximity to a burn.
The farther the trail crew can get the mules into the backcountry, the farther the trail crew can maintain the trail. This makes their log clearing and tread buildings critical for their own access to repair sites along the PNT.
The Pasayten Crew’s work this season will allow for more sustainable access for any trail user into the wild heart of the Pasayten Wilderness.
Thank you Marla, Spencer, Anthony, and Trevor!
Recent Trail Stewardship Events in Pasayten Wilderness
Pack Support Volunteers
Backpackers and equestrians who carry gear and supplies to PNTA trail crews working in the backcountry help make their work possible. They help PNTA trail crews budget more time for trail work and less time rucking equipment around.
A crew of 7 volunteers, Carin, Ronna, Jason, Raj, Patrick, and Ashley, carried out bear cans full of supplies to our crew in the Pasayten. Later on in the season, the Pasayten Crew and crews in Eastern Washington received help from the United States Forest Service and the Backcountry Horsemen on several of their hitches. These packers helped to bring resupplies to the crew, carry their tools and also assisted in packing out supplies to rebuild an eroded puncheon.
Thank you to Paul Goodrich, Landon Decker and Ray Beupre from the United States Forest Service and David and Anson Bartrand, Vince, Soren and Easton Stremler, Darrell Wallace, and Tim Van Bleek of the Back Country Horsemen of Washington!
Eastern Washington
In the arid climate of Eastern Washington, PNTA’s performance trail crews are out making saws sing and whipping through blowdowns. Similar to the Pasayten Wilderness, Eastern Washington is no stranger to fires — which means our trail crews usually have their work cut out for them each season.
Luckily, our trail crews come prepared for the challenge: this season, the Eastern Washington Performance Trail Crews cleared 1,163 logs. That’s almost half of all the logs cleared this season!
To close out their season, the two Eastern Washington Crews partnered together to build a puncheon near Sullivan Lake. The earlier puncheon had been completely eroded and torn apart, and the crews worked together on clearing the rotten pieces of wood and packing in fresh cedar to create a studier puncheon for the future. The puncheon spanned over a stream and will make traversing the wet section more efficient for trail users, and improve water quality in nearby aquatic ecosystems.
Thank you Sean, Emily, Emma, Emli, Westley, Maddy, Spencer and Emily!
Performance Trail Crew Dispatches from Eastern Washington
How You Can Help
PNTA performance crews are traditionally paid for through a variety of funding sources including federal funding that is received through agreements with the Forest Service. Funding freezes, staffing cuts, and new bottlenecks in the approval process at the Department of Agriculture have resulted in significantly reduced federal funding for PNTA crews this year. Our primary federal allocation for 2025 trail operations was drawn down to $0 by early August. Regularly, the PNTA sends out 7 to 8 crews a season. This past year, we were able to send out 5 crews. Continuing to keep our crews operating at their peak performance is now dependent on the generous support of people like you. With your help, we could raise the funds next year to send out a sixth or seventh crew to help maintain the PNT. Help us to fund next season here!
