Love for Maine trails: My journey into volunteering | Column

Published: July 23, 2026

Updated: July 23, 2026

Category: Maine News

Author/Source: Patrick Sandefur - Guest column

Love for Maine trails: My journey into volunteering | Column

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A trail is a good metaphor for life. It can be both challenging and rewarding at the same time. Walking a trail can be a type of meditation. It can clear your mind of the baggage that is troublesome. Like a properly arranged musical piece, a sublime trail is layered with birdsong, sounds of wind and water, blue skies and sunshine. The seasons and the weather are like acts in a play, transforming a trail into a complex cauldron of sights, smells, sounds and sensations. I am fortunate to live in Maine where there are so many beautiful trails.

Have you ever walked a trail and wondered how it got there? A magnificent trail is one that feels like it’s always been there, meandering through forests and meadows, taking you to beautiful vistas, roaring brooks and rocky shorelines. Like every great work of art there is a compelling story behind every trail. It starts with a vision and a story to share about the landscape that it wanders through. Many trails built in the past were built for practical reasons, such as getting from one place to another. Today, trails are mostly about recreation. Walking, mountain biking, running, backpacking and skiing are just a few examples of how trails are used. Trails are also a quiet place to live in the moment, to be in harmony with your surroundings, to immerse yourself in a unique beauty that only nature can provide.

A well-crafted trail brings joy. Joy from the sights, sounds and smells that change depending on the weather, time of day, season and wildlife. It is the exhilaration of knowing that each time I walk or run on the same trail, my experience will be different. Whether I am in the moment, focused entirely on the trail ahead of me, or I let my mind drift from thought to thought, relying on the trail to take me to its conclusion, I find peace.

Hikers enjoy a Kennebec Estuary Land Trust trail in June 2022. (Courtesy of Kennebec Estuary Land Trust)

Who creates and maintains our trails in Maine so that generations to come can enjoy them as I have? A network of public, private, nonprofit and government organizations do. The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), the Maine Mountain Club, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Parks and Lands, the Maine Conservation Corps, and local conservation nonprofit land trusts are all examples.

Local conservation land trusts are typically charitable entities that acquire or manage properties (conservation easements) of private landowners to protect natural habitats, open spaces or farmland. Many of these conservation land trusts have stewardship programs that rely on volunteers to deliver on their mission.

I am a volunteer for the Kennebec Estuary Land Trust (KELT), a nonprofit conservation land trust in Bath. I work with their stewardship crew creating, improving and maintaining trails. As described on KELT’s website: “We maintain, improve, and build trails and other public access features that protect the ecological resources from projected increase in visitor use and climate change impacts. We manage trails in order to increase accessibility to the land, while directing people to a singular path to allow for the preservation of ecologically significant places.”

I volunteer because I want to be a part of a community that cares, creates something that is beautiful and brings happiness to those who use trails. I also do it because it makes me feel good.

When I worked at a for-profit company, my mission was to deliver exceptional customer experiences and make a profit. Doing this made me feel good, too. Yet for me it was the kind of good I feel when I see a good movie, eat a good meal or watch a good ball game. It is a good feeling that is fleeting.

Volunteering for KELT is the kind of good feeling that runs deep and is lasting, especially knowing that I’m part of something good for my community and for the environment. It’s a good feeling that stays with me. A way to give back so others will enjoy trails as I do. Have you ever volunteered to work on a trail? You should. Why?

Because there are few better ways to spend your free time than walking and working in the woods and making a difference.

“You glide along the distant wood-side, full of joy and expectation, seeing nothing but beauty, hearing nothing but music, as free as the fox-colored sparrow.” – Henry David Thoreau

If you would like to volunteer at KELT, visit their volunteer page at kennebecestuary.org/volunteer-opportunities.

Patrick Sandefur lives in Wiscasset. He is a proud father, lucky husband, devoted runner and the founder of Elevate Running, a division of Bass Harbor Group. His 40-plus years of running changed his life in so many ways and at so many levels. It unchained him. It helped him to see the possibilities that a life well lived has to offer. bassharborgroup.com/about-3-2.