I just got done hiking a great trail through the Tillamook forest in Oregon. The trail was well kept and very long. Who makes trails like this? Does the park service contract out construction companies? How is it done? I assume most were made decades ago.
In: Engineering
The US Department of Interior controls the National Park Service. Park rangers and lower level employees do a lot of the physical labor to maintain trails and keep park guests safe.
A number of the original National Park trails and buildings were made by the Civilian Conservation Corps, a government employment program from the New Deal in response to high unemployment during the Great Depression.
State parks have their own Departments of Natural Resources, but also rely on volunteer trail workers to help maintain all of the trails.
It is very common for governments of all levels to contract out private work. They are then maintained by private contract or by park employees.
Just like any construction area, there are people who are very good at figuring out the best and most durable ways to do it.
For national forests and wilderness there are “trail crews” groups of seasonal employees who backpack out and build and maintain trails the whole season. If you went through a wilderness area, they built it all with hand tools, no chainsaws because those aren’t permitted in the wilderness, and if there were stone switchbacks, they carried and placed all that rock from the surrounding area–no help bringing it in. It’s a demanding and extremely rewarding job. I spent a few summers working on one, best job ever really.
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