explains Luce. Their mission is “to preserve the legacy of trail stewardship in the White Mountains Region by supporting and enhancing sustainable care of our trails,” and they accomplish it by supporting local projects and organizations with funding, work force, and training. Funded with a healthy mix of grants and private donations, Luce explains that the Collective tries to seek more federal funding, so as not to compete on the local levels with partner organizations. “We don’t want to take funding from partners. Any funding we get goes back to our partners. It’s all about them,” she says. Who benefits? WMTC project coordinator Yohann Hanley explains that locals, tourists, and visitors with a variety of interests will benefit from projects taken on by the WMTC
Last year, the Collective successfully joined forces with nine organizations to repair and maintain the Crawford Path. In 2020 and 2021, the Collective’s focus is dedicated to the Mt. Washington Valley/Saco River Drainage Area.
and its partners. “The end users of our trails are as varied as the trails themselves,” he says. Last year, the Collective successfully joined forces with nine organizations to repair and maintain the Crawford Path. In 2020 and 2021, the Collective’s focus is dedicated to the Mt. Washington Valley/Saco River Drainage Area. Currently, they are focused on the Mount Washington Valley Collaboration Project, a partnership between the White Mountain Trail Collective and staff from several non-profit organizations, land managers, and paid contractors, with a goal “to promote and improve outdoor recreation in the Mt. Washington Valley.” The Collaboration Project aims to “build and create a network of sustainable trail systems and jobs to bring together the outdoor community.” The trails they work on will accommodate locals and tourists alike for climbing access, hiking, and mountain biking. The partner organizations, overseen by the WMTC, will work together this year (in different combinations on each of the project areas) to maintain and develop Glen Ellis Falls, Cathedral Ledge, Hurricane Mountain, and Cranmore Connector. Hanley, a climber and hiker dedicated to conservation, will oversee the Collaboration’s four on-the-ground projects this summer. He explains, “It’s not just ‘we’re doing a project’—it’s that we’re facilitating a project for our partners and bringing in other partners. We’re trying to pass that knowledge around.” “Our whole goal as a collective is to provide funding and the ability for groups to come out and do trail work. The Access Fund has had this [Cathedral Ledge] project in its back pocket for two or three years, trying to get the funding, so we were able to help get it funded; and we’re going to take a big portion of the funding and we’re going to split it up. A lot of it is going to the AMC for their crew to come out; another portion of it is going to the Access Fund to pay for their crew. More of it is going to Vermont Youth Conservation Corps to pay for a crew for them to come out,” says Hanley, who will Summer/Fall 2020
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