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Building a Trail, and a Community

It was another great season on the Continental Divide Trail
Category: Community | | 1 min read

Every season on the Montana portion of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) brings another year of success, not just in terms of building the trail, but also in building a community around a mission that gives back to the wildlands we use and love.

CDT Montana, a Montana Wilderness Association program dedicated to stewarding the Montana portion of the CDT, draws volunteers from around the country, and even some from overseas, to build and maintain the CDT in Montana.

This year, every volunteer project that was part of stewarding the CDT was filled to capacity.

The people who volunteer on the CDT are a special group. Anyone who likes to spend their summer vacation swinging a Pulaski, moving logs, and shoveling dirt certainly has to be special.

But it’s not just the volunteers working doing trail work who make up this community. Here’s to the cadre of people, including the trail crew volunteers, who come together to make CDT stewardship work a success:

  • Volunteer packers: The Montana Backcountry Horsemen play a major role in stewarding the CDT by toting heavy tools, food, and gear in and out of the woods. Thank you to the men, women and four-legged beasts for this very hard work.
  • Camp cooks: We sure love to eat in the backcountry after a day of trail work. The cooks are a vital part of our work and the spatula is as important a tool as a Pulaski. A hearty thanks to those who look after CDT Montana trail crews.
  • Agency partners: The devil is in the details and our partners from the US Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management help make our projects a success with their logistical and technical oversight. 

We invite you to take a look at our project photos from 2015.

New projects for 2016 will be posted in March so stay tuned to our CDT webpage and our CDT Montana social media page for updates. Keep in mind that all 2015 volunteers and donors (wink wink) will get a two week sneak peek at our 2016 schedule before everyone else. We'll be recruiting trail crew volunteers, camp cooks, volunteer packers, and trail scouts before you know it!  

Happy wintering from CDT Montana staff! 

Shannon Freix, CDT Montana program director

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