The Diehard Volunteers Maintaining Saratoga’s Hiking Trails

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Drenched for hours in the pouring rain. Splitting fallen trees with chainsaws. Traipsing through the snow. Building a bridge over a bog.

Saratoga PLAN’s stewards might be the most dedicated, and perhaps underappreciated, volunteer group in the Spa City.

“They’re so sociable and they work together so easily; they’re just great people,” Magnolia Roosa, Saratoga PLAN’s stewardship coordinator, told Saratoga TODAY. “They come from all different backgrounds and areas of expertise, so bringing everyone together into a common goal, and seeing how everyone interacts and problem solves together, it’s a really nice way to start the week, and they’re a great group to work with.”

The stewards meet on Monday mornings, and last month they gathered for a volunteer appreciation breakfast at Saratoga PLAN’s headquarters on Spring Street. It was easy to notice their camaraderie, despite a foreboding weather forecast that threatened to derail their planned trail maintenance expedition later that day. But these stewards didn’t need sunny weather to maintain a sunny disposition.

“After having worked all my life, I’ve discovered that the best thing to do at the beginning of the week is go outside and do trail work,” said volunteer steward Lorraine Skibo. “It’s just phenomenal.”

Another steward, Bruce Klion, agreed. “Setting an alarm, getting up, and being somewhere outdoors throughout all four seasons at nine o’clock in the morning, it just feels great,” he said.

The precise number of people who participate in PLAN’s volunteer steward program fluctuates, but Roosa estimates that the nonprofit land conservation group has about 75 active volunteers, with new applications arriving every week. 

The stewards are primarily responsible for maintaining hiking trails, which can involve tasks as straightforward as sweeping debris or replacing signs, to jobs more complex and labor intensive, such as building bog bridges and kiosks. As more people have joined the team, bringing their own skillsets with them, the stewards have been able to monitor property boundaries, collect data, write reports, perform mapping and Geographic Information System (GIS) work, fight the spread of invasive species, and lead educational walks.

“We have one volunteer, he helped build the Finger Lakes trail. He’s been doing trail work all his life,” Klion said. “There’s a high level of expertise among a lot of these people.”

The work brings together those with common interests, such as hiking and the outdoors. But there’s also a social component to the volunteer program, which is comprised of many retirees and transplants.

“Most of the time, it’s people moving into the area that have come from backgrounds of either working with an outdoor organization or they had a career in the environmental field, and they wanted to get more involved,” Roosa said. “Sometimes, people that are new to the area just want to join a group of friends.”

A number of volunteers have joined Saratoga PLAN through the steward program, and then expanded their involvement to other volunteer opportunities or even board appointments. Klion joined the board of directors in September of 2024, and currently serves as co-chair of the development committee. Skibo is also a board member, and once served as its chair for two years. But regardless of their titles or the extent of their involvement, PLAN’s volunteers seem passionate about what they do.

“I have to be careful about how much detail I put in my emails because sometimes they’ll want to start working before I even get there, so I have to make sure that I show up early to get there before all the other volunteers,” Roosa said. “They’re such outdoorsy people that just love being outside, the fact that the program is getting them outside to these different preserves and being in a very social group, they’re happy to do those types of tasks. They’re really happy to do whatever task is at hand.”

Those interested in becoming a Saratoga PLAN Monday stewards volunteer can do so by submitting an application form here: saratogaplan.org/volunteer-application-form.