earn your dirt

I was just surfing through the message board and came across the expression "earn your dirt" from Doug -- sounds like a pretty easy banner to live under to me. You guys definitely have a sweet trail system there, and it's lit the proverbial fire under my ass to do my part in keeping Thousand Hills enjoyably rideable.

I understand that for a time GHTA considered having Thousand Hills Trail as one of its adopted trails. If that is still in line with your mission, I would gladly offer my services as steward. If nothing else it would afford me a greater sense of accountability, and GHTA another trail system in its quiver and extended volunteer hours to post. I'd like to make it clear that I'm not proposing that you guys would take on any extra work load. I'm only lobbying for the opportunity to have an established club's "letters" affialiated with the trail -- a thriving club with an established relationship with the Department of Conservation (as locally, Mtn Biking is not viewed as a conservation activity)
It would also be nice to have a message board to post trail work/hours on. At any rate, its just a thought, and I will continue "earning my dirt."

Distalamputee: Sorry about the late reply. We are not ignoring you. I've been racing cross and taking care of some other business concerning the 2010 Cross Country Racing calendar.

Let's table this until we have our next Green Hills meeting. I'll be setting up a date real soon.

I'd be curious to see how much volunteer base you have over there.

I like your attitiude!

I know there are a couple people besides me that do some work on the trail, but there is nothing organized about our efforts.

Living in rural Missouri has it's challenges when it comes to volunteer base for trail efforts. Urban areas have a much larger population to draw from and I've attended work days where there are 50+ volunteers.

In smaller towns, the same people that are generally "civic" minded and doing most the volunteer efforts are, more often than not, also involved in other volunteer efforts and have to plan their time between family, church, and civic obligations.

We aren't as organized as you may think. As large as this email list is, their is only a handfull that do most of the work. We have large efforts for our mega events like RIM, but most the time it is individuals taking care of a section and working around their schedules.

The key is to recruit new blood into the group so the work gets spread around. As others lose interest, it's important to find individuals that are enthusiastic and workers, not talkers.

I really like your stewardship model of people adopting specific sections of trail. I mow the trail here in three 8 mile sections (4 out & 4back) with a highwheeled offset trimmer -- though I think four sections of 6 miles using a handheld trimmer would produce better results. With better organization, the pool of work currently being done would produce pretty good results. I applaud the work you guys do over there and absolutely love your trails. With no exaggeration, they are some of the best I've ever ridden. (Thunder Mountain and Gooseberry Mesa continue as King of the Mountain though)