Saturday was National Trails Day and Juneau celebrated the annual event with a volunteer day at the Outer Point Trail.
“We’ve had about 40 members of the public help out. They’ve been working on re-vegetating the sides of the trail, it gets pretty muddy, hauling out garbage, helping our crews move logs for a bridge we’re building. Everyone’s been out working hard,” says Erik Boraas, the executive director of Trail Mix.
“The Outer Point Trail–it’s a city project–and we’re working on it, making it wheelchair accessible down to the ocean because there’s no other place in Juneau that I can think of other than a boat ramp that you can get close to the ocean in a wheelchair.”
Trail Mix worked with Southeast Alaska Guidance Association, the Outdoor Recreation and Community Access program, State Parks and the Forest Service to coordinate work on the trail.
More than 40 volunteers spent hours replacing the trail’s slippery boardwalk with gravel—which had to be hand delivered one bucket at a time by volunteers. The new trail will be completely wheelchair accessible when it’s complete.
Trails wasn’t all about work though. In the afternoon, volunteers took a break for food and fun including guided tours and trail bingo for kids.
