Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024 - 66

Trails Forever
Protects
High-Use
Pathways
Trailblazer
Josh Shapiro's dedication to preserving forest footpaths in the Great
BY NANCY HENDERSON I PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOSH SHAPIRO
of the Smokies. " We spend a lot of time
just trying to have everything fit in [with]
native stone and locust logs. "
Established in 2012 with a $5 million
endowment to fund a full-time crew,
Trails Forever is charged with rehabilitating
high-use footpath. Six have been
updated so far-Abrams Falls, Trillium
Gap, Rainbow Falls, Alum Cave, Chimney
Tops and Forney Ridge-and the
overhaul of Ramsey Cascades is currently
in its third year, with completion
expected in November.
A New York state native, Shapiro
couldn't get enough of hiking, but he
wasn't sure what he wanted to do with
his environmental science degree. " I just
wanted a job where I could be outside, "
he says. That vague goal became crystal
clear when he moved to Arizona after
college to work with a conservation
corps and fell deeply in love with the
scenic settings and physical challenge of
trail work.
After seven years out west, in 2009
F
or Josh Shapiro, staying
true to the individuality of
a mountain trail is just as
important as protecting it
from wear and tear.
" Our basic goal is to do the work
reminiscent of the Civilian Conservation
Corps when these trails were first built
in the 1930s. We don't want to introduce
anything drastic that would change
the character of the trail at all, " says the
quiet, head-down-and-get-the-work-done
supervisor of Trails Forever, a partnership
between the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park and the nonprofit Friends
66 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
he moved to Tennessee when he nailed
his first National Park Service job, as a
full-time crew member of Trails Forever.
Day in and day out, he built support
structures, improved trail surfaces and
worked with volunteers.
" I remember when I first started, it was
such a neat concept to be able to spend
multiple seasons just fixing one trail. In a
lot of places, the park wouldn't invest that
much time, and it's completely needed. If
you work on a trail and you can't spend
enough time on it, whatever deficiencies
you're trying to fix are just going to come
right back after a few years. "
Shapiro, now 47, was quickly promoted
to crew leader and, in 2015, took
over as supervisor. He divides his time
between the office, where he uses his
big-picture skills to plan and coordinate
the crew's next steps and hands-on field
work. When he walks the trails to assess
the materials, manpower and time needed
to bring them back to life, he's also on
the lookout for endangered and rare species
to make sure they're not negatively
impacted by the changes.
At the request of GSMNP management,
Shapiro and his team target
the
most popular trails to repair and upgrade.
" The goal is always to make the trail
safe to match the user type, " he explains.
" So the trails
that we've worked on,
we've kind of revamped to a different
standard than most of the other trails to
try to make them safe. The trail surface
is much more manicured. "
Take, for example, the Ramsey Cascades
project. " It's close to a road, "
Shapiro says. " You'll get hikers
that
aren't always completely prepared and
might wear flipflops or who-knowswhat
footwear. "
After
removing obstructive stones
and above-surface roots, Trails Forever
workers-20 or more at peak time, including
National Park Service employees,
conservation corps partners and
volunteers-construct steps and retaining
walls, usually with black locust logs,
which are plentiful and often carried by
park mules, along with camping gear,
tools and equipment. " They help out a
ton because that's so much weight, " Shapiro
says.
Like many of the more rugged trails,
however, Ramsey Cascades has been too
daunting for the mules, so the heavy logs
were airlifted into the space.
" It's a pretty
steep trail, " Shapiro
points out. " You go up 2,000 feet, over
four miles. There are a lot of exposed
rocks and roots, a lot of old trail struc
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Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024

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