by Curt Ashenfelter, Executive Director
Our volunteers, members, and trail-maintaining organizations have worked diligently since 1956 to protect, preserve, and promote hiking trails throughout Pennsylvania. You know how important the woods — and the trails within them — are to you. Why, though, do these hiking trails need the KTA?
Our footpaths cannot speak for themselves. They need someone to speak for them. Otherwise we risk losing them forever—to industry interests, other user groups, or to Mother Nature herself. Our state’s beautiful hiking trails are here today for all of us to enjoy because people like you recognize that they are special. The KTA is the only Pennsylvania-wide hiker advocacy organization.
Last year, our Advocacy Program helped preserve hiker-only trails, maintain free access to trails on state game lands, and uphold Pennsylvania’s ban on Sunday hunting. In addition, our first-ever “Fundamentals of Fracking” workshop, petition to the Governor, and subsequent rally in Harrisburg helped advance the critical education of policymakers and the public on the risks, threats, and environmental impacts of expanded natural gas exploration and drilling near—or even on—the footpaths in our state parks and forests.
Our hiking trails can’t build or maintain themselves. They depend on volunteers who spend their days, weekends, and weeks doing the hard work of rehabilitating some of our state’s most needy footpaths. This past year, 115 individuals supported the KTA Trail Care Program with their time and hard work, and we held 13 Trail Care events for an incredible 2,990 volunteer hours. In addition, more than 40 KTA-member clubs did trail maintenance, putting in thousands of hours of additional volunteer time. All these efforts help ensure your favorite footpaths are ready for your next hike.
No amount of advocacy and trail maintenance can replace what a hiking trail needs most—hikers! This past year, to engage more Pennsylvanians in outdoor recreation, the KTA implemented new outreach initiatives: our Slackpack, Trail Advocate, and Adopt-a-Register programs, along with our first-ever Film Festival and Membership Celebration. In addition, the KTA’s first kids’ art contest, newsletter spotlights on young hikers, and dedicated attempts to involve more youth and families in our spring, fall, and summer hiking weekends have successfully engaged more families and young hikers than in past years. More paths are leading toward KTA membership; in fact, this year we received an outstanding 176 new members—a record high!
Our Advocacy, Trail Care, and Outreach programs complement each other and are integral to the KTA’s mission. Together, these programs help keep the “wild” in Pennsylvania’s wilderness—the very same wilderness where you seek solace, escape, and rejuvenation. But these programs have a very real cost. The KTA is a nonprofit organization—it relies almost entirely on the generosity of hikers and nature-lovers like you (not government aid) to fund its work on Pennsylvania’s trails.
Please support the KTA and Pennsylvania’s footpaths today with a year-end, tax-deductible contribution of $50, $100, $250, or more. If $50 is too much, know that every dollar counts, and will help towards achieving our broad mission. In return, you will receive the satisfaction of knowing that the KTA will continue to be right there on the front lines—fighting to protect and preserve the trails you love. Click here to make a secure contribution online, or send a check (made payable to "Keystone Trails Association") to our office at: KTA, 101 N. Front Street, Harrisburg, PA, 17101.
On behalf of the KTA, I thank you for your commitment to hiking trails and for making the KTA a financial priority in your life. Together, we are the KTA.