Volunteers Make the Appalachian Trail

ATC has come up with five unique qualities of the Appalachian Trail’s public-private volunteer administration partnership. You can help us tell the story of why volunteering with the Appalachian Trail is so unique by emailing volunteer@appalachiantrail.org.

2nd Nationally in Number of Volunteers: The Appalachian Trail consists of the second-largest volunteer force for a unit of the National Park Service with 5,059 volunteers in the most recent year, second to Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Golden Gate is geographically bound to 114 square miles, while the A.T. is approximately 450 square miles with the most narrow interpretation of 1000-foot protected corridor; often the corridor is wider.

2nd Nationally in Extent of Boundary Lands: The Appalachian Trail has more miles of boundary except Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in Alaska. Whereas Park boundaries in Alaska may have limited access for development pressures or abuse, the Appalachian Trail is adjacent to 11.2 million people residing in 14 states (GA-ME) in the heavily populated eastern United States. The 1,200-mile boundary, including 2,082 tracts and 108,000 acres, is monitored by volunteers to prevent encroachment on and abuse of these federal lands in areas of dense population.

Sixth in National Park Trail Miles: The 2,198 miles of the Appalachian Trail plus 69 miles of side trails maintained by A.T. Club Partners makes the Appalachian National Scenic Trail sixth in the nation for number of Trail miles in the National Park System behind Yosemite, North Country Trail, Great Smoky Mountains, Yellowstone, and Shenandoah.

National Trails System Act: Due to Congressional intent, volunteers remain at the heart of managing and maintaining this resource. The physical geography of the resource makes it nearly impossible for federal agencies to staff the length of the Trail for its day-to-day management and maintenance. Thus, the A.T. requires a distributed volunteer base across 14 states (in such a volume given the A.T.’s location and necessary driving distance to remote locations) that traditional methods for signing volunteers on, as would occur in a square park, is impractical, if not infeasible.

46% of A.T. volunteers have been volunteering more than 7 years: A 2020 survey of A.T. volunteer section maintainers identified that 19% of volunteers had been volunteering in that capacity for between 7-14 years, while 27% of volunteers in those roles had been volunteering 15 years or more. The level of professionalism and tenure provided by volunteers, as maintainers and volunteer coordinators for their organizations, should be reflected in the systems that best support their work in those areas.

We would welcome your ideas about what makes volunteering on the Appalachian Trail special to help us add to this list. Please email volunteer@appalachiantrail.org.