REFLECTIONS BARNEY “SCOUT” MANN

Barney Scout Mann is an author, trail advocate, retired attorney, and avid long-distance hiker. In 2010, he retired from a 25-year career as a real estate and business lawyer in San Diego including four years as a managing partner. Barney began backpacking in 1965 with the Boy Scouts. In 2007, he thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail with his wife. In 2015 he thru-hiked the CDT and in 2017 he thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, making him a Triple Crowner.

What gave you hope when you joined CDTC’s Board for the future of CDTC?

What gave me hope for CDTC in 2015 when I finished my CDT thru-hike? Why did I jump in right away to be part of CDTC’s volunteer leadership? I saw an organization with the potential for greatness, a non-profit with cornerstones in place, especially Teresa Martinez, an organization primed to take a great leap. I hoped to be a catalyst and help us grab the next rung. Indeed we did, a first strategic plan within a year, which led to doubling and tripling of staff, doubling and then quadrupling of CDTC’s resources.

What was something you saw that you wanted to help CDTC become better at accomplishing?

Initially, everything. Sorry. CDTC had already come so far, but in 2015 CDTC was stretched razor-thin everywhere. Teresa even did the books because the part-time bookkeeper was sick.

As you leave CDTC’s Board, now what gives you hope?

Everything. We have a strong board, broad-based across all spectrums, and a huge net asset.

And I know the word is overused, but Teresa and her staff are amazing. Since our first strategic plan in 2016—there have been two more since —CDTC has met or exceeded nearly every target set. So, I am far beyond hopeful, I am enthused and can’t wait to follow the future of the CDT and CDTC.

What is your challenge to the CDTC Community?

Preserve the wildness of the trail and at the same time increase the breadth of use, accessibility, and the public’s knowledge and appreciation of the trail. The magic of the CDT is in its original charge to be a primitive trail. One of our great trails shouldn’t have hash marks every hundred yards, shouldn’t have a trail tread and grade as smooth as glass, and shouldn’t have shelters every eight miles. May the CDT always have long stretches where you still get lost, where you’re the only person on it for miles, a trail still raw where almost no one hikes the same path. I challenge you to protect the CDT, but please, please, never completely tame it.

What is one thing you are proud of accomplishing and seeing CDTC accomplish as a collective while you were on the Board?

Don’t make me pick one thing. If it’s that, then it’s making Don Owen eat his words that he’d never seen a fully-successful strategic plan before. (Don played a big part in making it that way.) Things I am personally proud of: The CDTC’s first Strategic plan, when I encouraged a few significant hires before CDTC was “ready” (because we might never have been “ready”), building strong board leadership, and working with my board partner Don Owen (yes, in the early years we did send secret messages to each other during board meetings).

One thing I will never forget is Teresa’s reaction when I told her I was stepping aside as Board President. I always felt close, but in that moment, I truly felt how close.

Barney served on the Board of Directors of the Continental Divide Trail Coalition for six years. He has participated in Hike the Hill, an annual week of advocacy for national trails in Washington, D.C., every year since 2008.

Barney’s contributions as a CDTC Board Member, fellow trail enthusiast, and generally terrific human being are deeply appreciated.

We’ll see you on the trail Barney!