The Volunteer Trail Ranger (VTR) Program
What is it?
The Volunteer Trail Ranger program is an opportunity to become an official part of keeping Montgomery Parks trails safe, accessible and clean. Rangers choose an available section of trail and inspect it every three months and after big storms while performing basic maintenance. What they report lets park staff know where work is needed – ultimately translating into better trails!
Who we’re looking for
In short, enthusiasm and a team attitude! More specifically, we are looking for adult individuals and family volunteers who care about a high quality experience on our trails – both for themselves and for other trail enthusiasts – and who want to help us maintain them to a high standard. Also, our Volunteer Trail Rangers are official Parks representatives, so Rangers should be comfortable communicating with the public in a positive way and able to understand the needs of multiple user groups.
What you’ll do
VTR's perform quarterly inspections and routine maintenance on their roughly one mile trail section (size varies). Once complete, the VTR e-mails the inspection form back to parks. On sections that require a bit more work than can be readily done during the inspection, completing the maintenance tasks may mean a second trip out for things like repainting tree blazes (darn – have to go out on the trail again!). We therefore ask that Rangers make themselves available to volunteer up to 8 hours per quarter, although they should usually finish in 4 hours or less. Larger or more complex trail problems are turned into work orders and assigned to either park a staff or a larger volunteer trail work day.
Training
Whether they’re trail-using newbies thirsty for knowledge or seasoned veterans, all VTR’s are provided with basic training to get us all working from the same playbook. The material covers Montgomery Parks trail standards, common problems, filling out and submitting the inspection form, and performing basic maintenance on their assigned section. For those of us who can’t get enough of talking about trails, what could be better?
The basic VTR training session takes place on a Saturday and lasts about 4 hours. It consists of an indoor classroom portion (with goodies!) as well as a field component on the nearby park trails to test out what we go over.
Assignment
Upon completing training, new Volunteer Trail Rangers are able to select an unassigned section from any of the program’s available trails.
New opportunities will be added throughout this year. Please be aware that this program focuses on sanctioned, natural surface trails in Montgomery Parks.
Still have questions?
Contact the Volunteer Services Office
301-495-2504
lynn.vismara@montgomeryparks.org
back to top - last update: July 29, 2011
Montgomery County Department of Parks