Celebrating Our Volunteers and the Community They Create!
Volunteer Appreciation Week 2023 has come to a close, and we're all smiles as we look back on the memories we made while celebrating together. Thank you to everyone who joined us for events, we loved getting to connect with you are reflect on all we've accomplished this year.
Our volunteers contribute a great deal to WTA — that includes trail crew members, hiking guide correspondents, trip reporters, ambassadors, advocates, magazine contributors and app developers. We are so grateful and proud for all that we’ve accomplished together in 2023.
Our passion for the trails of Washington is the thread that binds us, however it is the spirit, kindness and just plain fun loving nature of our volunteers that makes us the community we are today and helps us towards our WTA mission of Trails For Everyone, Forever.
Every year we celebrate our volunteers during our Volunteer Appreciation Week, with online and in-person events around the state. This year’s 22 events celebrated the volunteers that make our work possible and highlighted our 30th anniversary of trail maintenance. But we also had thousands of trip reports, 648 hikers joined our Trail Action Network, and it was a banner year for our ambassador program which expanded to 48 volunteers.
Here are a few fun moments from this year's events.
Youth step up
This year we had over 480 youth trail maintenance volunteers and celebrated the return to the backcountry for our youth volunteer vacations.
Micki Kedzierski (one of this year’s Crosscut Award winners), led a Youth & Family work party and potluck at Blyth Park. Photo courtesy Micki Kedzierski.
Dynamic duos
Two is better than one. Volunteers across the state had fun together during volunteer appreciation week, whether it was working on trail or indoors prepping for a potluck. 
Volunteers across the state had fun together on trail and off during volunteer appreciation week.
Daniel Hypes and Mela Collins (left) play around at our first ever Teanaway Community Forest volunteer appreciation event and camp out.
Meg Bushnell and Brad Baumberger (center) spread the trail love and the gravel at our Larrabee work party and cookout. In our Northwest region, this year we celebrated many great achievements and volunteers, not to mention the return to trailwork at the North Cascades National Park for the first time since 2016.
Kristy Canright and Eastern Washington trails team coordinator Holly Weiler (right) getting ready for the regional awards potluck. Not only did the Eastern Washington trail crews finish a long-time Hauser Conservation Area project this year, the region was also able to celebrate their ambassadors and the major success they had at the Eastern Washington University Earth Day stewardship event.
Fun activities in the wild
A bit of history and a hike at our Grand Ridge retrospective event.
With over 760 work parties and 54 crew leaders having a hand in the trail starting back in 2001, that’s a lot of hands!
A few more firsts at this year’s events: Archery hit the mark this year in our South Puget Sound region. We also had a great time hosting our volunteers at the WTA Seattle Office! Our favorite bit was having ambassadors in the mix to hand out Above & Beyond Awards.
Celebrate & gather
A pub get-together for the Southwest region in Vancouver. Celebrating the return of old friends and many regional accomplishments including ongoing fire recovery efforts in partnership with the Back Country Horsemen of Washington and Trail Action Network members contributing the sustainable trails plan for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
We also had plenty of volunteers to celebrate at our Olympics potluck. This year in the Olympics we piloted an intro to backcountry trips (BCRTs) and continued amazing work in the Kitsap Peninsula. Here’s a few of our crew leaders receiving their kudos!
Finally, it's all smiles at the regional Puget Sound awards celebration. This year, crews in Puget Sound completed the Greenbrier Trail at the City of Woodinville. Additionally they’ve been busy this year with ambassadors attending 25 outreach events throughout the region.
There are so many great stories to tell about our volunteers in 2023. To hear more and see all of our award winners, check out our 2023 Volunteer Appreciation Yearbook and our 30th anniversary trail maintenance video.
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