Outdoorism

I was climbing at the popular Las Conchas trailhead in Santa Fe National Forest when my curiosity was piqued by two 45-foot beams on a truck near the highway. When I saw what they were for, I had to document the way these huge beams were being moved into the backcountry:

The bridge builders were from Reineke Construction, spending their weekend doing more of what they love, building better trails. Mark Reineke was kind enough to answer some of my questions about their work.

What do you think the benefits of your volunteer work will be?

As avid mountain bikers and owners of a small business, we have very tangible connections to the benefits of our work –- great trails to use. On the less tangible side, we want to enhance each person’s outdoor recreation experience through increased access via sustainable, well-designed and constructed, safe trail systems and trail access points. Volunteer work gives us a chance to give back to land owners (in this case, the U.S. Forest Service, who manages these public lands on behalf of all taxpayers) and helps protect and maintain the trails we enjoy using. We believe that volunteering encourages a spirit of “good will” and shows a commitment by mountain bikers to give back, thus, hopefully demonstrating that we are good stewards of these precious resources.

What other motivations do you have to volunteer your time & effort?

First and foremost, it is a lot of fun to see the physical improvements take place and to hear from other trail users how much they enjoy the fruits of our labor. In addition, our company’s vision is to create and continuously improve a self-sustaining, small business, focused on high quality services provided through cooperative, partnering relationships with its clients. Working both as small business owners and as volunteers, we show that we are serious about these cooperative, partnering principles.

What do you recommend to others who are inspired by you to volunteer?

Try it, you’ll like it!” In fact, you might get hooked. Call your local forest service office, open space office, or city/county land owner’s office and ask to speak to their volunteer coordinator about upcoming projects. Also, we encourage folks to contact IMBA (http://www.imba.com/) to get involved with a local mountain biking group – many have trail maintenance groups.

Who else can we thank for the vastly improved bridges?

We want to provide credits to several key folks for the bridge building projects we have done in the Jemez District of the U.S. Forest Service. First, Phyllis Martinez of the USFS is the visionary and the person who made all this possible. Without her, these projects never would have happened. Secondly, Joe Hancock and his team of horses, Jake and Chester, made it possible to move the 45-foot long beams and tons of concrete to the construction sites without adversely impacting the natural resources along the East Fork of the Jemez River (a wild and scenic river). Lastly, Reineke Construction, a member of the Professional Trail Builders Association, offers its thanks to the many volunteers who helped build 7 (soon to be &8;) bridges to make this trail accessible to more of the using public.