In Colorado, we are fortunate enough to have an amazing plethora of trails for every type of user. It’s easy to take for granted the amount of organization, time, and sweat that goes into building and maintaining the trails that we know and love. If you are a trail lover (which I think it’s safe to say is all of us), then we highly, HIGHLY, recommend volunteering for a day of trail work; be it maintenance, building, or cleaning. 
This past Saturday we teamed up with Salida Mountain Sports and Salida Mountain Trails, as well as about 30 other volunteers, to help build what will soon become Salida’s Rusty Lung Mountain Bike Trail.
Building trails is hard work. There’s no other way to put it. However, we are heavy trail users and for us, trail work is just as rewarding as it is tough. For four hours, close to forty men and woman spent their Saturday morning laying ground for the new trail. We happily hurled heavy rocks into a gully, then covered them with dirt. We worked just outside of Salida, creating a trail that will be easily accessible by the whole community. Trail runners, mountain bikers, and avid hikers all joined together to work against the background of the beautiful collegiate peaks. 
If you have ever used a trail in Colorado, or in any state for that matter, we encourage you to volunteer on a trail project in your community. It’ll be hard work, but you’ll walk away with new friends and the satisfaction that you helped with something that brings people great joy. Afterwords, you can use that trail and point out exactly where your hard work made a difference. We had a variety of volunteers show up, from avid trail workers, to people who were new to the area, to those who had traveled from far and wide just to volunteer for the day.
We want to give a big thanks to Salida Mountain Sports, Salida Mountain Trails, and Elevation Outdoor Magazine for helping to organize the event. Also thank you to Mo Burrito in Salida for making sure the the hoard of hungry trail workers were well fed! Once we made friends on the new trail, we all headed back into town to enjoy tasty burritos and share beverages. Salida Mountain Sports and Elevation Outdoors provided prizes for a huge raffle held after we all replenished calories.
Salida Mountain Trails hosts a volunteer day once a month. If you’re in the area stop by a give it a try! You’ll contribute to the community and leave with some new friends.
If you like the gear we’re reppin’, or what we’re wearing, check out some of the sponsors that make this tour possible: La Sportiva, Crazy Creek, National Geographic, RovR Products, Sea to Summit, Mountain House, LifeStraw, and Lowe Alpine.
