Volunteers chip away at early season trail projects

It's already March and WTA crews have finished quite a bit of work. The Spokane snowshoe work party season is finishing up, and crews on the west side improved several trails, in some cases restoring them to wide open and wheelchair-friendly and in others just cutting a path through downed trees.

Another season of snowshoe work parties in the bag

While there sadly wasn't much snow this year, the snowshoe crews had plenty of brushing to do. They worked at Mount Spokane (and Mount Kit Carson — pictured) as well as at Iller Creek.

At Iller Creek, there were lots of downed trees to clear as well. 

"It was basically impassable immediately following the storm. We held a total of 3 days on the project in January just to get it open and usable again," Eastern Washington regional crew leader Holly Weiler said. 

We'll be back in March to finish cleaning up anything that was under snow and do a little more brushing — join us!

Bomb cyclone recovery continues

New green hat Courtenay (right) and ACL Tara (left) pause during a big root removal project on Squak Mountain's East Side trail. Photo courtesy Courtenay Schurman

WTA's work to repair trails on Squak Mountain from the bomb cyclone in November continues. Longtime volunteer AaronC reported that crews worked on the Sycamore access trail clearing downed trees with crosscut saws and winching root wads out of the way.

And trip reporter, Mountaineers hike leader and freshly minted green hat (above) Courtenay Schurman reported clearing five massive root balls off the East Side Loop.

Building towards being open

Trail crews just completed the 100-foot-long boardwalk through the wetlands at Loganberry Lane in early February! It's not ready for primetime just yet; crews are working hard to complete two new sections of trail as well as a 48-foot turnpike to get trails fully finished for Everett's urban hiking community later this spring.

Trail crews working to construct boardwalk in order to protect Loganberry Lane's fragile wetlands. Photo by trip reporter Freud Ian Slip. 

Big thanks to volunteer crew leaders Doug Murray, Carole Bianquis and John Clark who have been instrumental in the success of this project since work began in 2024.

Happy volunteers brave snow and fill the Gaps

Not even snow could stop an intrepid 4-person crew (joined by a Ridgefield staff member) at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge in February! Big thanks to volunteer crew leader Jim Clute for leading this project on such a chilly day, but calling it for the day before conditions got unsafe.

Smiling in the snow — that's how you know things are going well on a work party. Photo courtesy Jim Clute.

Big thanks also to volunteer crew leader Janeen Licatovich for spearheading an unusual afternoon work party at Hockinson Meadows Park. We were called in to help Clark County finish a short project that they wouldn't have otherwise had capacity to complete.

A bonus: it was a location WTA had never yet worked, so we're excited about the potential for future work there!