“Trail work is more than a profession—it’s a labor of love, of craft, undertaken by those who give a damn. And if you ask me, there’s nothing more punk than that.”
Words and photos by Hannah Truby
In celebration of National Forest Week, the National Forest Foundation hosted restoration projects across the country last week, teaming up with local orgs and outdoor brands to put boots—and shovels—on the ground.
In Truckee, California, The Landmark Project invited Mountain Gazette (that’s me) to join a Community Dig Day on Jackass Trail. The job? Haul dirt. Rebuild features. Get your hands dirty! All this alongside folks from the Forest Service, Truckee Dirt Union (TDU) and a few dozen volunteers who want to help out on a trail they ride, hike, and care for. It was the kind of day that reminds you how much care these places really need—and how possible it still is to give it.
Today, trail use is up–and only growing. But at the same time, our public lands are stretched thin; funding is slim, climate threats are mounting. And trail work is still largely volunteer-led. Which is why, in a way, it’s become its own quiet form of protest. A way of saying: this matters. We’ll take care of it, even if no one’s paying us to. That’s punk rock.
The Jackass Trail has always been a bit punk rock, too. Before it was “official,” it was a local favorite—a scrappy network of user-built singletracks just above Truckee. In 2014, the Truckee Trails Foundation and the Forest Service stepped in to adopt and improve the trail, recognizing that what local mountain bikers had created was worth maintaining. In 2019, they added the A-1 Trail—now El Burro—which turned Jackass into a fast, flowy loop with berms, rock rolls, and proper turns. Today, Jackass Ridge sits inside a 68-acre conservation easement, protected by the Truckee Donner Land Trust.
But the real backbone of this place is TDU. They’ve kept the trail alive by crews, “an iterative community stewardship and user-education program powered by volunteers”, around a shared ethic of stewardship.
As I write this, the future of our public land agencies feels increasingly shaky. A lot of folks working in conservation right now are feeling let down—abandoned, even—by the very systems meant to support and protect them. When funding dries up or politics get in the way, it’s not just a job on the line. It’s your connection to a place: the trail you helped carve out by hand, the shed where your tools hang just so, the seedlings you’ve been tending season after season. This kind of work doesn’t attract people looking for a paycheck. It pulls in people who care—deeply.
Trail work is more than a profession—it’s a labor of love, of craft, undertaken by those who give a damn. And if you ask me, there’s nothing more punk than that.
