During the fall, raking is a key part of our yearly trail management efforts. We often get asked why we conduct this work as opposed to leaving it to decompose on the trails. However, raking has been identified as a key maintenance need for Forest Park. Raking the trails in Forest Park keeps them clear of debris, helping prevent erosion and mitigates safety risks for park users. Without raking, water pools around debris, causing erosion, and slippery leaves, which might hide tripping hazards, which poses a danger to park users.
This trail maintenance is only made possible thanks to our volunteers! They really make a difference on the trails and helping us steward Forest Park!
During the 2023 raking season, we raked 46 miles of trails! We raked 23 miles in 2022, so we accomplished twice the amount of work last year! This is due to some incredible turnout from our incredibly dedicated volunteers. During the 2023 season, 404 volunteers joined us to rake the trails! This includes some extra volunteer events that started on Thanksgiving morning and went through Thanksgiving weekend. Additionally, our Independent Volunteers were hard at work conducting additional raking on the trails. All of that contributed to our most successful raking season in years!
Want to know the most surprising part? This was all achieved without leaf blowers! Our stewardship team has been too small to manually rake every mile of soft surface trails in Forest Park, and so most years we needed to do some leaf blowing to cover what trails we couldn’t finish clearing with just volunteers.
We know that you don’t like the noise, and as an environmental organization we like to minimize our impact in conducting trail work. Let’s put into perspective how much that additional 23 miles of trails our volunteers covered means. When comparing the level of air pollution produced, one hour of leaf blower use is roughly equal to 1,100 miles driven. So, 23 miles of leaf blower use is roughly the equivalent of 12,000 miles driven by car!We truly thank everyone who volunteers with us, your contribution has a huge impact on Forest Park and the greater Portland ecosystem. Additionally, our staff is only able to train so many volunteers and host so many work parties thanks to the support of Forest Park Members! As a non-profit independent from the city, we rely on the support of donors to make what we do possible. If you want to help support our work, consider becoming a Forest Park member or volunteering with us!