Once Youth Volunteers, Now WTA Leaders

Some folks find out early in life what they want to do when they grow up — Anna Pree and Kat Conley discovered the outdoors could be their office as teenagers, when they joined their first WTA work parties.

Their paths paralleled each other’s for years. They both started volunteering with WTA’s youth trail work program as high schoolers. They met for the first time in 2021 as crew members on WTA’s professional Lost Trails Found trail crew and worked together for two seasons, often spending full weeks together in the backcountry. In the summer of 2023, their work with WTA came full circle when they led a youth volunteer vacation together. 

Volunteering with WTA inspired them both to find careers in the outdoors, including working on some of Washington’s most challenging backcountry trails. Years later, making use of all they’ve learned through their trail experiences, they are inspiring the next generation of trail workers and stewards.

On-the-clock building materials: rocks. Off-the-clock: humans. Photo by Zachary Toliver.

Starting strong

The similarities between their stories began right at the start. The first work parties for both Anna and Kat were weeklong youth volunteer vacations, Kat’s in 2016 and Anna’s in 2018. 

Anna learned about WTA when a WTA youth ambassador started a hiking club at her high school. From there, she learned more about WTA’s trail work program and signed up for a youth volunteer vacation at Packwood Lake. 

“At this point, I didn’t know much about the outdoor workforce and field work, but I was excited to give it a try,” she said. “Camping and digging in the dirt for a week sounded like the best thing ever.” 

Like Anna, an outdoor career wasn’t initially on Kat’s radar, though her connection to the outdoors was strong from an early age. She learned about WTA after her sister went on a youth volunteer vacation. Kat’s first work party was a youth volunteer vacation on the Wonderland Trail. 

“I knew I liked hiking and wanted to meet other youth who enjoyed the outdoors, but like many youth who participate, I mostly wanted to fulfill my school’s requirement for service hours,” she said.

For both of them, that week in the woods was a bigger deal than they thought it would be — enough to kickstart an interest in working in the field. They both said that getting to spend an extended time with a group of other teens, having fun and working toward a common goal outside made the experiences more memorable and powerful — and kept them coming back.

Becoming professionals

After their first trail work experiences, both Anna and Kat kept volunteering with WTA. Kat went on two more youth volunteer vacations and Anna organized her own youth trail work party with her friends as a WTA youth ambassador (a program currently on hiatus). 

The two eventually transitioned to professional trail work. Kat with the Rocky Mountain Conservation Corps as she was starting college. The experience convinced her to focus on a trail-centered career. She even took time off college to work with the Washington Conservation Corps in Bellingham. 

After a year of working on frontcountry trails, Kat was itching to head farther into the mountains. In 2021, she was hired as the assistant crew leader for WTA’s inaugural Lost Trails Found crew (at the time, known as the “pro crew”).

Anna was also eager to work in the field again after high school. She considered leading a youth trail crew. But she ended up applying to the Lost Trails Found crew, which turned out to be the right decision for the time. 

“You can get paid to dig in the dirt and play with saws? No way. I’m so in. The Lost Trails Found crew just sounded like an ideal place for me. It was a cool opportunity to be outside all the time and get more experience with trail work,” Anna said. “I think that was a good call because I was not prepared to wrangle youth yet.”

Heading into the backcountry

Anna and Kat worked together all summer in 2021 on the Lost Trails Found crew. They and their crew accomplished an extraordinary amount of work throughout the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest, including maintaining over 80 miles of trail, clearing over 1,000 logs and restoring over 2,500 feet of trails. 

Kat (front right) and Anna (front, second from right) spent a summer working together on WTA’s Lost Trails Found crew. Photo by Zachary Toliver.

And they didn’t just work hard, they played hard too. 

“We really fed off of each other’s silly energy and could often be found at camp doing cartwheels, having handstand-coaching sessions and dancing around,” Kat said. “The mosquitoes (on one trip) were horrible, so the whole crew hunkered down in our tents side by side and read aloud passages from a book I’d brought.”

“I love my LTF buddies so much and I feel like we really became a little family,” Anna said.

Both Anna and Kat continued their work with the Lost Trails Found crew in the 2022 season, where their expertise from the previous year helped them clear more than 2,700 logs and maintain nearly 60 miles of trail in remote locations. 

Coming full circle, together

In the summer of 2023, Anna and Kat worked together again, but in a new, special way. 

The pair led a group of nine youth volunteers in trail work projects at Deception Pass State Park over a week in August as a part of WTA’s Trails Rebooted campaign. They worked on challenging projects, including building puncheon bridges. The crew found a good groove and became as smooth as a well-oiled machine. The crew built three puncheons, including ramps, and moved a lot of gravel.

Though both Anna and Kat separately led several youth trips over the summer, this one was particularly memorable. 

“The youth volunteer vacation was one of my favorite trips of the summer,” said Anna. “The crew was super efficient and the gravel dump truck could barely keep up with them. We built three puncheons over the week and carried a lot of buckets of gravel. The kids were awesome.”

Kat (front left) and Anna (front right), leading a youth volunteer vacation. Photo by Anna Pree.

And the two leaders never forgot to have fun with their crew. 

“Anna and I definitely brought our same goofy energy to the trip and I think it rubbed off on the participants,” Kat said.

“Leading with Kat was a blast!” Anna said. “Because we have been working together for so long, it was only natural to start the week already in forest-hooligan mode. I think this also made the kids a lot more comfortable to match our energy and get to know each other too.” 

They made silly recipes, named their buckets of gravel, played games (one young crew member taught everyone how to play Dungeons and Dragons) and spent their final night of the trip watching the water from the Deception Pass Bridge.

Starting with WTA’s youth program gave Kat and Anna a unique perspective when leading their own youth volunteer vacation.

“It’s definitely a lot more teaching, managing and answering questions than actually doing trail work,” Anna said. “I like to just dig sometimes, but it’s cool watching everyone learn throughout the week and feel confident in their skills and also teach each other.”

The work party was so much more than just a fun week at Deception Pass and a successful puncheon-building project. It was also a powerful story about how these two aspirational volunteers are now taking what they’ve gained from their own field experiences and sharing it with others — inspiring young volunteers to keep pursuing opportunities in the outdoors. 

“I think it was a great example for youth on the trip of where they might end up if they enjoyed the work we were doing,” Kat said.

What’s next?

Kat is completing her college degree in environmental science and geographic information services this year, and Anna is teaching snowboarding at Snoqualmie and Stevens passes this season while pursuing an environmental engineering degree at the University of Washington. 

Kat is graduating from college this year, then will start work as a field coordinator with the Rocky Mountain Conservancy’s Conservation Corps program. Anna is planning to return to WTA this summer working again with the youth program, showing young volunteers the joys of working outside. Both are excited to continue their outdoor careers moving forward, building trails in nature and connections in the outdoors industry.