Crockett Hills Volunteers Set New Record for Trail Work Hours in 2025
Thank you to all of our volunteers!
BTCEB volunteers put in 708 hours of trail stewardship at East Bay Regional Park District’s Crockett Hills Regional Park in 2025. Work sessions were a mix of 4 weekend larger work days, 9 weekday work days, and smaller group work. 92 different volunteers showed up 195 times. 10 volunteers tallied 10 or more hours showing an expanding base of core volunteers. In November we had the opportunity to partner with both the East Bay Regional Park District and the Bay Area Ridge Trail, allowing us to engage a different audience than we normally connect with.
708 hours is the highest total we’ve logged since we started keeping track of volunteer hours in 2018. Park supervision and staff support have enabled this volunteer trail stewardship. Midweek access provided by staff facilitated a different format that helped increase participation and decrease travel time compared to coming from the main trailhead. It also helped to significantly increase the amount of work volunteers could accomplish by reducing travel time inside the park to get to more remote work areas.
Work throughout the year maintained and improved drainage, hardened several sections of Soaring Eagle trail, repaired berms and rollers, cleared downed limbs, and cut back poison oak and other vegetation. Volunteers aren’t permitted to use power tools, including line trimmers, and that limits the amount of tall growth we can cut back. We continue to advocate for improved vegetation management by the park district to help keep the trails open. Staff provided mechanical support on several work days with mowers and their Toro Dingo. Additionally, a conservation crew worked for about a week clearing tall vegetation in the spring. The combination of all those resources still leaves some of the trails overgrown for several weeks.
If you see a trail issue that needs attention you can make a report via Trailforks and we’ll get an email. If the issue is beyond our capacity we’ll work with park staff to get it addressed.
Continued funding from Trail One Components helped keep us supplied on tools, materials, and provide lunch on our larger work days. Trail One Components donates $1 for every Crockett handlebar they sell. Trail One Components donates $1 from every item sold either to a product named trail system or into their Trail Treasury for donations to other trail stewardship. Consider Trail One Components when looking for components and help support trail stewardship at the same time.
Watch for trail work opportunities at Crockett Hills (and other East Bay parks) throughout the year on Meetup. In particular, we have trail work days coming up at Crockett Hills on February 7, February 19, February 26, March 7, and April 12.
Scott Bartlebaugh, Advocacy Director
