Crew Leader College Recap

Please consider making a donation to Washington Trails Association by April 30 and help us reach our spring goal of $16,000. You'll help keep your favorite trails open this summer and beyond. As of today, we are just $1450 away from our goal!

* * * * *

This past weekend Washington Trails Association held our Crew Leader College at the USFS compound in North Bend. We were blessed with sunny weather, and lucky enough to have beautiful Mount Si serving as the backdrop for the workshops held at the USFS compound. This annual event is an opportunity for our much-valued Chief Crew Leaders and Assistant Crew Leaders to learn new skills or perhaps brush up on some others. 

One of the focuses this year was to work on Emergency Response and Leadership. With safety being our highest priority on any WTA work party, and fun being our second, we took the opportunity to reinforce these skills though these workshops. Keeping our volunteers safe and happy has always been a WTA trademark, and we were able to build upon that base.

There were also several technical skills building workshops offered, which help ensure that our leaders have the necessary skills to perform the quality work that WTA is known for. One workshop was able to build a crib wall, both teaching the technical aspects as well as effective crew management techniques. Other workshops taught rock wall and new trail construction, while others focused on new trail construction as well as constructing fords and working with rigging.

Close to 100 awesome participants, from all over the state, came out to help themselves become even better leaders. We were able to pair up our seasoned WTA Chief Crew Leads with knowledgeable agency instructors to lead the workshops. This provided a great team that was able to address a wide range of issues and concerns that come up on a WTA work party.

You can see these skills being applied by coming out on one of our many fantastic work parties offered across Washington or heading out for a hike on one of the many spectacular trails WTA has the privilege to work on. Check out our calendar of upcoming work trips and our special project working the rebuild the Pratt River Connector trail.

Whenever you get so many trail lovers in one room, it is quite inspirational and makes all of us in WTA’s trail maintenance department very thankful that we have a amazing pool of volunteers to rely on.  It was also our new Executive Director, Brian Windrope’s, first opportunity to meet with some of the finest people you could ever hope to work with, and he was duly impressed. What a fantastic way to start his journey with WTA.

Thanks to all the participants, as well as our agency instructors, helping to make this another successful Crew Leader College.