A volunteer vacation with the Bigfoot Trail Alliance offers more than trail work—it’s a transformative journey through Northern California’s wilderness. Participants gain hands-on skills, forge lasting friendships, and discover a deep connection to nature. It’s an adventure that blends purpose, beauty, and community in some of the state’s most remote backcountry.
2024 Regional Trails Summit
In January 2024, a successful Regional Trails Summit was held, marking a significant collaboration among agencies and partner groups in northwest California forests. The summit focused on trail system improvement, with plans for future work and collaboration. Key objectives included community building, trail maintenance, and funding discussions. Notably, the summit saw participation from 35 in-person and 5 virtual attendees, signaling a major milestone for the region’s trail development.
2023 Volunteers of the Year
Michael Kauffmann, founder of the Bigfoot Trail Alliance, acknowledges the significant contributions of Karen and Les, professional trail work volunteers, who since 2018, have dedicated 160 hours to maintaining the Bigfoot Trail. Karen and Les recount their experiences and provides advice for potential new volunteers, encouraging newcomers to take a plunge into volunteering with backcountry trails.
Bear Creek Trail, Trinity Alps Wilderness
May 17-19, 2023 Volunteer Work Trip By Dennis Houghton, Crew Leader (all photos by Dennis too!) We had a great trip to the Canyon Creek drainage, camping at Ripstein Campground and doing trail maintenance & logouts on the Bear Creek trail section of the Bigfoot trail this past week. Temperatures hovered in the mid-to-high 80’s […]
2023 Tule Creek Trail
In this first of its kind project along the Bigfoot Trail, we partnered with College of the Redwoods Forestry & Natural Resources and the Hayfork Watershed Research and Training Center to get some work done! Fifteen (15!) volunteers came together to make this happen. Dennis Houghton brought his Trails class from College of the Redwoods, […]
Upper Wooley Creek
JUNE 2022: A team of 15 volunteers worked the Bigfoot Trail in upper Wooley Creek as well as significant portions of other nearby trails including opening trail to Elk Lake. We removed 120+ trees and brushed 3.5 miles of difficult trail.
Kelsey Trail: Baldy Peak to Harrington Mountain
The South Kelsey Trail was first designated as a National Recreation Trail in 1979, but was used by early miners between 1855-1880 as a route between Crescent City and Fort Jones and other inland mines in the Klamath River region and Yreka. Along with the Old Kelsey Trail, the South Kelsey is a key portion […]
Hiking the Bigfoot Trail in 2021
Whether you are hiking the whole trail or just section hiking the trail is ripe for exploration. Most thru-hikers will start in the Yolla Bolly-Middle Eel in mid-June and hike north. The advantage to this approach is that the snow in the higher mountains to the north will have time to melt off and river levels will drop so crossing them will be less dangerous. Another important consideration for hiking the Bigfoot Trail in 2021 is the trail’s yet unknown conditions after 2020 Slater and August Complex Fires. Please be safe out there!
