Step Up and Step In

By Peggy Townsend

Brown dust caked our ankles as my sister and I hiked the steep rise, the sun warming our shoulders and our stomachs grumbling for lunch.

The trail led us up humped coastal hills to a shadowed stand of redwoods that was cool and cathedral-like. We rounded a sharp bend and suddenly, there it was: a redwood-slab bench that looked down a canyon to the blue Pacific beyond. We smiled and pulled out the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches we’d packed. Someone obviously knew exactly when a hiker might need lunch or a few gulps of cool water while enjoying a postcard-perfect view of a sparkling ocean.

Which is the beauty of a trail constructed mostly by volunteers: people who regularly hiked and biked in nature. People just like us.

We were at the 5,800-acre Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument outside the tiny coastal town of Davenport, Calif., a tract of BLM-managed land that only recently opened to the public thanks to a collaboration of donors, residents, foundations and, most importantly, nearly 900 volunteers.

The author in the redwood grove in Cotoni-Coast Dairies National Monument

Once home to the Cotoni (Cho-toe-knee) tribe of the Coastanoan people, the stunning tract of land was a dairy farm from 1901 until the early 1960s. That’s when Pacific Gas and Electric quietly negotiated an option to buy the land to build a nuclear power plant. When a public outcry shut down that proposal, a developer then moved in with plans to turn the gorgeous stretch of land into a collection of high-end homes. Finally, a gathering of foundations and environmental organizations like The Trust for Public Land, The Nature Conservancy and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation bought the land and eventually transferred it to the Bureau of Land Management.

Today, beef cattle roam the land along with visitors who traverse 19 miles of trails, both on two legs and two wheels. The trails are single-track and stacked in a way that an easier trail leads to a more intermediate trail which takes one to a more strenuous route that puts a traveler’s muscles to the test. The trails blend into the landscape, are designed to prevent erosion and avoid protected habitats. What was most amazing to me, however, was that the trails, hidden stone and wood benches and, even the bridges, were built by volunteers. Organizers estimate 10,000 hours of labor were donated to the project.

That model, I believe, is not only a way to help take care of our cash-strapped public lands but also pays tribute to the way wild places can build community. And that’s something we can stand a little more of.

Imagine people from all walks of life coming together to cut trail, weed invasive plants or build a stone bench. Imagine how maintaining and protecting the land would become the bridge between every single one of them. Imagine someone then trying to sell off or allow mining and oil drilling on the space they worked so hard to protect. I’m not suggesting that volunteer work should be an excuse for the government to cut funding for rangers, scientists, custodians and, yes, sewer-plant operators. What I’m saying is that public lands have the potential to become our new public squares.

There are plenty of volunteer opportunities for those who want to work on public lands. Check in with your local National Park Service or State Park offices, US Fish and Wildlife and trail building groups, then step up and step in.

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Peggy Townsend is a former award-winning journalist and author of four mystery novels, Her newest, “The Botanist’s Assistant,” comes out Nov. 18.