Volunteer Trail Heroes: Chris Walter and Tom Wilson
Tom Wilson and Chris Walters are the hometown heroes behind Santa Cruz's beloved parks and trails. The duo volunteer and lead events for us on a regular basis. They are the extraordinarily talented trail workers (and just downright fantastic people) who head out to parks after a storm, tools in hand. Chris and Tom remove fallen trees and repair damaged trails lickety-split so that community members can get outside and enjoy the beauty of the Santa Cruz Mountains safely. Their hard work and dedication to our community's cherished outdoor spaces often goes unnoticed, despite hundreds of thousands of trail users benefitting from it each year.
Tom Wilson is the retired Vice President of Geo. H. Wilson, and Chris Walters currently works as Deputy Fire Marshal with CAL FIRE. The two men have been involved in local trail stewardship since 2010, and have collectively put 1,530 hours into open spaces. Just this year, they attended 45 trail work events and completed over 500 hours of volunteer maintenance into local open spaces. That's over 20 days of trail improvements in the past 12 months!
Both Chris and Tom are Trail Sages with SCMTS, meaning they have graduated through the organization's Trail Academy coursework and special trainings so that they can lead independent trail work events in the field. Their time spent learning, leading, and completing this vital volunteer work makes it possible for more community members to get outside and connect with nature–something that's become increasingly important in recent years.
The key to great trail maintenance is working with the landscape so well that users don't even notice that any trail work that took place. Tom and Chris are experts at maintaining trails... you might not even be able to tell all the effort that went into building a drain, trimming back hazardous branches, or stabilizing sections of trail with tricky rock work. Their work is invisible because it's done right. It's time to shine a light on the impact of Tom and Chris' time in the field.
Tom and Chris are inspiring the next generation to care for open spaces and trails. Their dedication and generosity create a ripple effect, and transform trail users into trail stewards who routinely volunteer with SCMTS at trail work events across the region.
