By Chad de Alva
Several years ago, I attended a meeting with the Supervisor of one of Colorado’s National Forests. The message from the person who oversaw millions of acres of public land and thousands of miles of roads and trails was both clear and concerning: The number of people who were visiting the forest annually was increasing, and there was no sign of this increased visitation slowing down in the years to come. Worse yet, there weren’t enough resources available to maintain existing roads and trails, much less create new roads and trails to help handle the increased visitation load. In other words, expect more people to use trails that are in increasingly worse shape from this point on. Thankfully, folks from the Colorado Trails Preservation Alliance (TPA) were also at that meeting, and aware of the situation befalling public land managers on this forest and all over the Western United States. Fast forward to 2025, and the TPA has implemented a solution to help address the lack of trail maintenance resources: The TPA Trail Crew.
Trail maintenance on public land is done in several ways. First are the trail crews that are employed directly by the land managers, such as the Forest Service. These crews can be seasonal or year-round jobs, but it’s not uncommon for an entire ranger district to only have one several-person trail crew for all of their trail work (both motorized and non-motorized). Next are the trail crews for hire fielded by outfits such as the American Conservation Corps (ACC), the American Conservation Experience (ACE), or other professional design/build companies. These crews are commonly hired with grant funds (this is why you buy OHV stickers) by local user clubs, land managers or other entities. Next, there are the local clubs who have volunteer agreements with their local land managers. Many of these clubs will run trail days, and they can also hire professional trail crews with grant or internal funding. Lastly, some states like Colorado have Good Management trail crews. These crews are a partnership between the state and federal land managers that are funded with state OHV sticker dollars. In the case of Colorado’s Good Management state-wide trail crew, that program ended in 2023.
This may sound like a lot of different resources to maintain trails, but the truth is there is a decreasing supply of resources that are trying to maintain a trail inventory that is only seeing more use each season.
The TPA Trail crew is a new type of trail crew. Where local clubs may only have volunteer agreements with their local ranger districts, the TPA has a region-wide volunteer agreement, which means that the TPA trail crew can work all over the Rocky Mountain Region of the USFS. This is a huge advantage when it comes to having a resource that can be employed anywhere it’s needed in the region.
Think of the TPA Trail Crew as something like a hotshot crew from the wildland fire world, and you’ll get the idea. With their own truck, trailer, bikes, and tools, the TPA trail crew is self-sufficient. That means they can mobilize anywhere there’s work that needs doing, ride into the work site, and do everything from cutting trees to digging related tasks for days on end. The crew is funded by the TPA on an annual basis, which removes many of the inefficiencies found in the other methods of trail work that can be described as flash in the pan (single day or short term) events. Think about the impact that a crew of skilled folks doing nothing but working on our trails all summer long can have for a second. Pretty neat, isn’t it.
My favorite part about the TPA trail crew, and everyone on the TPA team, is that everyone on the crew rides, which means that our trails are being cared for by folks who know what makes for a good trail and what doesn’t. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been to a trail day or laying out a trail with a land manager or other trail crew and it’s apparent that these folks don’t ride – they route the trail in the worst possible way through a given chunk of landscape, or they assign maintenance work that doesn’t solve a problem, kills a line, or honestly isn’t an improvement – it’s a step in the wrong direction. If you’ve ever ridden a trail where you found yourself wondering who the knucklehead was who laid out such a crappy trail, know that the TPA trail crew knows how to do things right. You have to be a strong rider to handle a 450 loaded with tools on many of Colorado’s trails, and the TPA trail crew is more than up to the task, and the work they’re doing actually makes sense and makes trails better.
So here’s the deal – if you see the TPA trail crew while you’re out riding, give these guys a high five (or some cold beer) and tell them thanks. If you like the fact that there’s a crew of hard-hitting dudes out there making our trails better – send the TPA some money – because they’re doing the good work our trails so desperately need. Rumor has it that when the snow starts falling, the TPA trail crew is going to be headed to the desert, and that means more trails in more places are going to get better.
Think of the impact that scaling this trail crew program would have on our sport. What if there were three trail crews? What if there were crews like this in every Western state?
If recent events (like the gutting of federal land management agencies) have taught us anything, it’s that federal land managers aren’t going to magically get the resources they need to do all of the trail maintenance that needs to be done, much less have the bandwidth to entertain new trail projects. We need to do everything we can to care for the trails that we have so that they’re viewed as sustainable trails by their respective managers. There is a point where it’s easier to close a trashed trail than rehabilitate it. Ask any OG who has been fortunate enough to ride in a Western state for a long time and they’ll all tell you the same thing. The map used to have a lot more trails on it.
The TPA Trail Crew is an awesome new way to help care for the trails we all enjoy. It’s a model that we as a user group (off-road motorcyclists) need to lean into and help support. Would the BDR’s be better if there was a crew roaming all of the routes making sure trails were open and in good order? What impact could a full-time trail crew have in Utah, Idaho, Arizona, or just about anywhere there’s a trail?
