Sitka Trail Works’s executive director Ben Hughey recently spoke with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey about the challenges of trail building in Southeast Alaska.

KCAW: What about the work you do at trail works? Do you think came to the attention of the Chief of the Forest Service?

Hughey: “I think for this particular award, the local Ranger District nominated us because of the unique partnership and program we’ve been developing over the past few years to engage Alaskans in volunteer stewardship of trails. In particular, there are some unique challenges for small communities in Southeast Alaska when it comes to trail maintenance and development. First, there’s the environment. It’s rainy, it’s muddy. You have to constantly cut back brush and clear blow down, and almost every linear foot of trail has to be covered in rock or wood, armoring the tread from erosion. So it’s very resource intensive to maintain trails in Southeast Alaska’s rainforest, and we have less capacity in small towns, whether that’s funding from local governments, retired volunteers who happen to have a lot of experience and tons of time, or large nonprofit organizations that can shoulder tons of work. So given the resource demands and the capacity constraints, we needed creativity to address the desire of our communities to be able to still get outside and enjoy the trails.

KCAW: Did you participate as a volunteer with Trail Works when you were growing up in Sitka?

Hughey: I was actually on the crew as a high schooler. So in 2006 when I was a junior, I was hired by the Sitka Trail Works crew, and that’s how I got my start on trails.

KCAW: What are some of the projects of note recently where volunteer participation has been instrumental in making it happen?

Hughey: Yeah, I think the Mosquito Cove trail has had hundreds of volunteer hours poured into it in recent years. We just hosted the National Trails Day volunteer event there. Over 30 people came out, and we broke up into six different project teams. One of those was addressing the blasting site, where we had to use explosives to clear hazardous blow down from the trail, and volunteers helped move gravel and build turnpikes and make water crossings around the trail. A lot of folks were returning volunteers who really knew what they were doing and were able to attack more technical projects.

KCAW: What’s a turnpike?

Hughey: A Turnpike is a form of trail construction used in saturated soils, which we have many of here that has side wooden side rails, or sometimes rock side rails to hold in a gravel tread with some depth.

KCAW: I remember when Trail Works was founded, and I think the purpose of the organization at the time, or one of its justifications, was to retrain and re-skill pulp mill workers, or timber workers. Has Trail Works evolved past that original mission, or is that still sort of incorporated into the your purpose?

Hughey: Yeah, I think that the mission there is about addressing critical community needs with creative solutions. And Sitka Trail Works was founded to re-employ displaced mill workers, and now we’re employing locals to fill a need in trail maintenance capacity after the Forest Service terminated their trail crew this spring,

KCAW: You did a big fundraising effort to re-employ the fired Forest Service trail crew. How did that go?

Hughey: It was very surprising and heartening to see how much Sitkans were willing to chip in to ensure that we still had well-maintained trails. And because the Forest Service has such reduced capacity, Sitka Trail Works is now the only crew in town keeping trails open. We were able to fund a full trail crew, and we have four people working on the Mosquito Cove trail right now.

Note: Learn more about Sitka Trail Works’ “Save a Tongass Trail Crew.”

When the Forest Service fired the entire cabin and trail crew for the Sitka Ranger District in February, many people may have thought that it wasn’t a tough loss, as they were only seasonal workers.

But the cabin and trail crew – like many jobs in the Forest Service – is a different kind of seasonal work.

“These guys come back year after year because they have this permanent status in a seasonal position where they don’t have to apply again,” said Ben Hughey, executive director of Sitka Trail Works. “And that means that the Ranger District invests in their training, and they usually bring quite a bit of skills to the job.”

Sitka Trail Works is a local nonprofit which supports the Forest Service with public outreach programs – like trail and cabin surveys – and with volunteer work parties to assist with local trail maintenance.

Hughey admits the unskilled-but-energetic crews that Trailworks puts in the field are no replacement for the recently-fired Forest Service team.

“The trail crew leader had a background in construction as a contractor, and so he was out there milling lumber in the back country and building bridges,” said Hughey. “There’s a beautiful new bridge on Salmon Lake that was completely constructed by this crew. They do small structure construction,  building new outhouses. They’re skilled arborists, cutting down hazard trees, overhanging scary stuff that I wouldn’t touch. And explosives. So getting the even more hazardous obstacles out of the way of our trails or cabins sometimes takes really technical work that we as Sitka Trailworks can’t just take volunteers out and do.”

But what Trail Works can do is raise money. And in just a couple of weeks they’ve raised $106,000 in donations. The purpose is straightforward: To put as many of the Forest Service crew back to work as possible, for as long as possible, maintaining the federally-owned resources around Sitka that residents enjoy – and pay for with both taxes and user fees.

Hughey says putting displaced workers back to work is in the DNA of Sitka Trail Works.

“Sitka Trail Works was founded when the pulp mill closed in the 90s, to keep families in town, to provide job opportunities, doing something that gives back to the community,” said Hughey. “And so we’re going to do that again. These are folks in need of jobs, and we’re going to create opportunities and put them back to work, doing, doing what they love and doing what the community needs.”

But it’s only a stopgap. $100,000 raised in a couple of weeks is significant, but it’s not a long-term solution. The Forest Service – and US citizens – have made a considerable investment in public lands over the years, which no amount of nonprofit fundraising can match.

“The Sitka Ranger District has several support staff for these crews,” he said. “They have multiple boats. They have access to airplanes, a huge shop and tools and resources that we really can’t fundraise for locally. The capacity in our community with everybody chipping in just doesn’t get to the the amount that the Forest Service invests in these public lands. So we’re pushing as hard as we can to get one season.”

Hughey says the ultimate goal is to preserve the public’s access to resources that would otherwise suffer if the expertise and skills of the Sitka Ranger District’s trail and cabin crew were eliminated along with their jobs.

Frannie Donohoe is the director of Sitka Cirque and Ben Hughey is a board member of the Cirque Noir committee. Cirque Noir is an adult dance party with “immersive art,” including aerial silks, cage dancers, projected art, and live music. There will also be an outdoor beer garden. Doors open 8 p.m. Saturday, August 24. Advance tickets $35 available online.

Sitka’s circus arts program is trying out a new kind of performance through “Cirque Noir” — what organizers call an “immersive experience” that will include live music, aerial performances, and dancing. Frances Donohoe and Ben Hughey joined KCAW’s Erin Fulton to talk about how they hope the event will bring “light into the dark” of Sitka’s winters.

The event is for those 21 and up; it will take place Saturday, December 9, 8 p.m. to midnight at 207 Smith Street. Tickets are available at sitkacirque.com and include drink tickets.

This initial list open for comment includes conceptual plans for nine reconstructions, six new day hikes, four backpacking trail ideas, and nine short in-town trail connections. Sitka Trail Works director Ben Hughey joined KCAW’s Brooke Schafer to discuss the plans and how the public can give feedback. Listen here:

Sitka Trail Works surveyed almost 800 Sitkans this spring about the future of local trails. Trail Works executive director Ben Hughey joins KCAW’s Brooke Schafer to go over the results, and the next steps forward. Listen Below:

Results showed over 60% of those surveyed used the trails at least once a week and almost 100 people stated they used the trails for subsistence. Trail Works will be looking into creating new routes and trails. For more information, offer comment, or make a donation email ben@sitkatrailworks.org or visit the Trail Works website.

Doug Osborne, Amy Ainslie, and Ben Hughey join KCAW’s Brooke Schafer to talk about the Walk, Bike, Win program which will get started this summer and go through September. The program aims to reduce downtown congestion and improve the quality of life in Sitka for residents and visitors alike by encouraging people to commute by bike or on foot. Prizes will be offered for those who participate. Listen Below:

For more information on the program and how to register, visit the Sitka Trail Works website.

Ben Hughey, Executive Director of Sitka Trail Works, joins KCAW’s Meredith Redick to discuss an upcoming initiative and survey the organization is putting out. The survey results will inform Trail Works future trail development plan. Listen Below:

To learn more, or to take the survey, visit the Trail Works website. Paper copies of the survey are available at the Sitka Public Library. The survey will be available through the end of May.

For just over a year, Ben Hughey has been the executive director of Sitka Trail Works, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving outdoor access for Sitkans, and supporting community health. Having completed most of it’s founding trail plan (Herring Cove, Heart Lake, the Cross Trail network, and many more), the organization is going to “open the floodgates” for ideas for future projects from more neighborhood connectors to backpacking trails to kayaking routes. Learn more about Sitka Trail Works.

A section of the Sitka Cross Trail is closed until further notice, after a landslide washed out about 30 feet of the trail over the weekend. 

Sitka Trail Works Executive Director Ben Hughey said the “slump” occurred just past the Cascade Bridge, between the Kramer Avenue trailhead and the Cascade Creek access point, sometime between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.

“It took out the entire base of the Cross Trail,” Hughey said. “A hiker called in, and we were able to get a couple photos and post a warning on Facebook as soon as we heard about it, since it does pose a potential danger to bikers coming from the north, coming downhill.”

The Sitka Cross Trail is on city land and managed by the city of Sitka. Hughey said the city plans to send out an engineer to assess the area, but so far the timeline and strategy for reconstruction is unclear. 

“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears that the slump and slide continued a long ways downhill, meaning that rebuilding will be a considerable effort,” Hughey said. “The foundation for the trail base seems to be totally obliterated.”

Hughey said it wasn’t the only slide that took place over the weekend. 

“I think this is a good reminder that on heavy rain event days, we all have to be really heads up when we’re in the woods that these slides could happen at any time,” Hughey said. “There was rockfall out in Silver Bay, near the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. It’s just really good to be mindful when we have these heavy rain events.”

A news release from the city states that the trail is closed from Cascade Creek Bridge to Kramer Avenue until further notice due to the “erosion and embankment failure.”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Sitka Trail Works is managed by the city. Sitka Trail Works is a nonprofit that constructed the trail, and the Sitka Cross Trail is on city property and managed by the city. This story has been updated.