They love horses, don't they?

[Photo by  Paul Garber, courtesy, Muir Heritage Land Trust]

I'm always amazed at how committed and creative people are when pursuing their passions. Here's a great example of a grassroots (look at the picture) networking effort that's literally transforming the landscape. The fine folks organized by the Bay Area Ridge Trail are nearing completion of the 400th mile of trail around San Francisco Bay--for horse riding, biking, and hiking. On the weekend of June 2-3, 250 volunteers turned out  to complete the trail through Muir Heritage Land Trust’s Sky Ranch in Martinez, California. Thanks to Morris Older who edits the Tilden-Wildcat Horsemen's Association Newsletter for all his hard work and for the tip. (Disclosure: he's my cousin.)   

Comments

[tara]

nice one

[morris older]

In more ways than one, the volunteers working on the trails at Sky Ranch and elsewhere are in sharp counterpoint to the direction the larger world sometimes seems determined to move in. In an age of supersized fast food and sedentary desk jobs, they are creating recreation alternatives at the same time that they are using their energies the old fashioned way--physically, albeit in an intelligently coordinated way. The Pacific Crest Trail, running from Canada to Mexico has had its budget slashed many times, but each year volunteers donate 40,000 hours to maintain and rebuild trail sections. Many use their vacations to do so--getting in shape while at the same time creating opportunities for others to do the same. Volunteers on the Bay Area Ridge Trail worked in five counties on June 2 to build and maintain trail, and the same thing is going on the Appalachian Trail and many others around the country. All of which harkens back to another time, when, in the midst of the depression, the voters of the East Bay passed a parcel tax on their homes to establish the East Bay Regional Park District, the first of its kind in the nation, which now manages nearly 100,000 acrees of parkland. This was in 1932, before the age of McDonald's, television, computers and atomic bombs, and in some ways, people had their priorities straight in ways we would still do well to emulate.