Batona Hiking Club (BHC) volunteer Tom Hurd spent fifteen years section hiking the A.T., then turned around and completed his 2006 thru-hike in 149 days. Tom, who has taken on much of the responsibility for monitoring and maintaining the Trail corridor boundary on BHC’s section of the A.T., loves volunteering on the Trail because spending a few days a month volunteering helps him “get back the wilderness feeling” he had when he was hiking.
As a corridor boundary volunteer, Tom spends plenty of time in the wilderness. Not as well-known as Trail maintainers, corridor boundary volunteers walk the boundary, or the edge of the protected land that the footpath traverses, and make sure that it is preserved. Much of the work Tom does is on extremely steep and rocky slopes of the Kittatinny ridge in Pennsylvania.
Tom is responsible for maintaining the boundary line and documenting encroachments, such as dumping of trash, off-road-vehicle use and other uses of A.T. land that threaten the Trail. He has created a spreadsheet for BHC’s monitoring documentation and developed short-term and long-term boundary maintenance protocols.
Tom took on BHC’s corridor boundary work on his own initiative, says Susan Charkes of BHC, who adds that Tom “has done an amazing job over the past two years.” Tom, who is retired, enjoys the “satisfaction of seeing a job through to completion,” and, as a hiker, wants to give back to those who cleared the trail for him.
Thanks, Tom!
Learn more about Corridor Boundary volunteering
here.