Service Learning Blog Post - Washington Trails Association Tursi Trail

Washington Trails Association - Tursi Trail - March 11 (8 hours)

Barbara Budd - barbara@wta.org

The trail before my participation. 

Jacob, my boyfriend, carrying a bucket of dirt to the packer at the bottom of the trail. 

Me, posing for a picture. I am carrying a bucket of HEAVY dirt to the next person in our bucket brigade. 

The Tursi trail, during the weekend of finishing touches. 

Posing for another picture. I have a bucket of dirt that I am carrying to the next person in our dirt trail passing line. 

I volunteered with the Washington Trails Association, where we participated in a trail rehabilitation. The goals of this event were to work on the finishing touches of a new trail in Anacortes, WA, the Tursi trail.

We met in Anacortes, WA, and went straight to the Tursi trail to start our day of work. We set up for a day of filling and packing dirt since this trail is new. Volunteers have been working on this trail for a whole year. My group was part of the finishing touches, and I worked in two various areas, packing and filling. I first learned how to use the McLeod, a long-handled tool with a flat head on the top with two different sides, one resembling a comb and the other which was a straight edge used to pack down a new layer of dirt on the trail. I also participated in our dirt bucket assembly line or "bucket brigade," where we carried buckets of dirt to our trail packer. This was a fun environment to be a part of, and it put into perspective the amount of work and effort put into the trails I hike on a regular basis. Many enthusiastic participants enjoy volunteering to ensure the trails they hike are of the best quality. Before leaving for the day, we met up and talked about the work we had done before venturing back to our homes. 

This experience was incredible. I felt that I was close to my culture because where I am from, I spend all of my time outdoors. In the winter, we snowmachine, in the summer we go out and hike, pick berries, go fishing, and many other things. In the spring, we hunt geese and spend our days in our skiffs. During the fall we are hunting for moose to sustain ourselves through the winter. All of our lives have revolved around being outdoors so for me finding a way to contribute to my new community by being involved with the outdoors was one of the best experiences. It didn't feel like I was "working," rather that I was enjoying what I always have. We as people depend on the environment, some societies and cultures more than others. My experience had also allowed easier access to people who will walk this new trail. I learned the importance of coming together as a community to partake in activities that will ultimately help others. I couldn't have found a more fulfilling way to do so because it allowed me to feel closer to my culture and the natural world. On my own, I wouldn't have taken the time to search for this type of activity nor would I have related it to what we learned in this course. I hope that in the future I can become a more active member of this community to continue to learn and grow as an individual who respects the culture of others as well as the natural world. 

The volunteer work I had chosen to do relates to animal biology through their environment. When we were out on the trail, we were in the natural environment creating a trail that will be used by many. When we consider animals we need to also consider their surroundings. In class, we covered a whole bunch of animals, to the environmental barriers, speciation, and the respiratory system. For me, this can relate to environmental barriers between different species of birds. If the birds are in different areas of the world, this would be a type of postzygotic barrier (I think). It is also interesting to think about the various environments that birds live in this area about natural selection. As the environment changes and the food sources vary, natural selection may act on individuals who are more suited for the environment over others that are not. The work I had done, with still keeping the idea around birds can relate to speciation, and the different types, like parapatric, sympatric, or allopatric. 

Questions: 

1. How many trails are built in Washington? Are all of the trails built in this way or are some of them natural trails? 

2. Before there were volunteers to help with the work parties to ensure the best quality trails, were there many natural trails? 

3. What types of animals are part of Washington's ecosystem? 

4. How are new trails established, are they established as they go or is there some type of planning associated with new trails? 

5. What is it that brings people out of their home to hike various trails? What are they seeking when they go out to hike? What do they hope to discover when they go on hikes?