Join ATC, or Local Trail Club, or both?

[Lyle]

For me, I've diverted most of my trail spending to other, less well funded trails - CDT, NCT, Northwest Trail, etc.

The AT had a leg up on all the other trails in the way that Congress authorized them, they are basically complete with a protected corridor, plus they get more and bigger charitable donations from corporations and individuals due to their being so well known. Other trails are still struggling to protect their existing corridors and actually build tread, with the disadvantage of having less money. I have seen much of the ATC money funneled into school educational programs, high power fundraising, protecting "viewshed", etc. Things that may have a purpose, but are not actually trail building and maintenance. While other trails are struggling to exist, ATC is branching out into other areas. I prefer my money to go to actual trail building.

[Lauriep]

Great to see this question being asked in the first place. If hikers support a local trail club, that's a win for the Trail. If hikers support ATC, that's a win for the Trail. If hikers support both, that's a win-win.

Here's a overview of the roles of the clubs and ATC, with an explanation of some of ATC's work, which is not always as tangible as the clubs in the short term.

Clubs generally look after the day-to-day, year-in year-out maintenance and management of their assigned sections, which vary in length from 2 miles to over 200. Their work includes maintenance of the treadway, maintenance of shelters and privies, corridor monitoring, and working with A.T. Communities. (It's a lot more than that, but those are some of the most essential functions).

ATC ensures the long-term protection and preservation of the Trail, and the quality of the A.T. hiking experience.

This includes overseeing the treadway. In recent years ATC has been focusing more on making the footpath and overnight sites more sustainable, which is ever more important as we face increased use and more extreme weather events, which means accelerated erosion. It's also overseeing the corridor boundary program, which helps identify threats and encroachments large and small before they become harder to mitigate. It's working with partners, including local communities (and yes, sometimes that is educating local schoolchildren about the A.T. so there is greater support for the A.T. and hikers). We also work with partners to protect viewsheds and nearby landscapes from Georgia to Maine. We develop policies to deal with traditional as well as emerging threats to the Trail. We develop programs to deal with changing circumstances, which include educating an increasing number of hikers on sustainable practices and giving them tools to voluntarily spread themselves out.

There is definitely some overlap between ATC and the clubs in functions. And ATC especially helps smaller clubs with maintenance and management, and things like skills training and volunteer recruitment. On the other hand some clubs innovate new techniques and ATC helps share these with other clubs. Clubs can be powerful advocates in dealing with threats to the Trail. Some of the larger, more robust clubs are fairly self-sufficient, others need significantly more support from ATC.

In some places, ATC trail crews perform relocations, rehabilitation, and even maintenance where the clubs do not have the necessary expertise or manpower.

ATC also works with the National Park Service (NPS) to ensure all its requirements of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail as a unit of the National Park System are met. The National Park status gives the A.T. its most potent protections and helps ensure a continuously protected footpath for almost 2200 miles. The NPS simply does not have the capacity to oversee 6,000 volunteers in 31 clubs spread out over 14 states. Nowhere in the park system do volunteers play such a significant role in managing and caring for a National Park unit. We have this unique arrangement because of ATC's role in working with volunteers to originally build and then oversee the Trail.

Everything involved with taking care of the A.T. is a partnership that includes ATC, the local trail club, the NPS. Where NPS is not the landowner, we also work with additional land-owning agencies (of which there are several dozen). In virtually every area of the Trail the make-up of those partnerships is different. Sometimes the agency is a big national park like the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, sometimes it's a tiny county park like Pen Mar. Sometimes a local trail club has thousands of members, drawing from major urban centers; sometimes a club has only a few dozen members from a sparsely populated rural area. ATC empowers local partners to contribute as much as they can, and steps up to the plate whenever any pieces are missing. In some respects ATC is lead partner, in some respects we are an equal partner, and in some cases we play a support role.

ATC continues to be very involved in land protection and landscape protection, and are expanding our efforts to work with local partners. There is increasing development and threats to the Trail in many areas. A number of years ago we made the determination that operating a separate land trust wasn't the most efficient and effective use of our resources, with a dozens of parcels scattered across 14 states. Although we still maintain properties and conservation easements, we now focus our efforts on working with a variety of local land trusts and other partners to protect lands along the Trail.

Without the volunteer trail clubs, there would be no Appalachian Trail. With ATC, there would not be a scenic, continuous long-distance trail. And we couldn't do it all without many, many partners. Those partners are volunteers at ATC's leadership level and volunteers digging in the dirt; federal, state, and local governments; employees of the National Park Service and ATC, and in some of the clubs; members and donors of ATC and the clubs. It's an amazing public-private partnership.

This is just an off-the-cuff summary that may not be perfectly balanced or complete, and I'm sure does injustice to the work of many (including many of my colleagues) but hopefully provides a little more depth in this discussion. If anyone wants to know more, I encourage you to explore the websites of the 31 clubs, the National Park Service A.T. website, and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy website, especially the Conservation page.

[chknfngrs]

Even if off-the-cuff, exactly what I needed to read!! Many thanks for your input!

[Lauriep]

Thanks for your support, chknfngrs, whatever you decide to do. And thanks to the many folks on WhiteBlaze.net who already support ATC or their local club financially or by volunteering, and those who provide helpful information and encouragement here to others. And thanks to ATTroll for making this forum possible.