Snow (trail) angels.

Byline: Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

WILLAMETTE PASS - Partially obliterated by freshly fallen snow, the faint tracks visible in the icy crust told a story of confusion in the woods south of Gold Lake.

Some skiers or snowshoers - following orange and white diamonds nailed high to the trunks of trees - had obviously gone straight ahead. Others just as obviously had veered off to the right, toward a blue diamond barely visible on a distant tree.

Kathy Jensen and Lyndell Wilken paused at the junction and discussed their alternatives.

"Do we want to take those (orange and white) diamonds down and not add diamonds, or do we want to add a (blue) diamond?" Jensen asked.

In the end, the two members of the Middle Fork Ranger District's new Winter Sports Volunteer Program agreed it would be best to do both.

"This is a beginner's trail, so you want to help the beginners out all you can," Jensen said.

She pulled a GPS unit out of her pack to record the exact location, then made a note to add one blue diamond and to have someone with a ladder come back in the summer to remove the other two confusing markers left over from some long-since abandoned trail.

In the meantime, Jensen and Wilken used loppers to remove several drooping tree branches that obscured views of the next diamond in the string of blue blazes off to the right - the correct route of the Marilyn Lakes trail, west of Gold Lake Road.

Jensen and Wilken had offered to conduct "trail reconnaissance" on the Marilyn Lake route as part of the new Forest Service winter volunteer program that each had a hand in launching. The program also includes "adopt-a-ski-trail" and "adopt-a-ski-shelter" components.

"Kathy is such a cool story - she saw this need and came to us," said Ryan Brown, the Middle Fork Ranger District's recreation planner and coordinator of the volunteer program. "It's her brainchild."

Jensen, however, says "Lyndell was my inspiration," because Wilken - of her own volition and without any fanfare - "single-handedly got the Rosary Lakes trail in shape" over four years by pruning limbs and moving blue diamonds into more visible spots.

Once upon a time, of course, such trail maintenance work was all done by Forest Service employees. But with the budget cutbacks of recent years, Brown said, "the emphasis of the Forest Service has moved away from having a lot of field people out there."

No one has to explain the change to Kathy Jensen, whose husband, Chris, was the Forest Service's recreation planner in the Highway 58 area until his retirement about three years ago. Chris Jensen is also among the 11 volunteers signed up for the Winter Sports Volunteer Program.

"My husband used to be in charge of the winter sports program, but they don't have the staff now," Kathy Jensen said. "They have all these hundreds of miles of ski trails, and nobody on staff to keep them up."

Jensen said some trails close to the Gold Lake Sno Park have been maintained by the Willamette Backcountry Ski Patrol, of which she and her husband are members. "But the patrol can't get to many of the outlying trails on a regular basis."

Jensen believed skiers and snowshoers should, and would, be willing to help keep their favorite trails in good shape. So she suggested the "adopt-a-trail" approach to Brown, who is encouraged by the response and the results so far.

The program "is going really well," Brown said. "We're really happy with it. The Willamette National Forest is lucky we have just the most amazing cadre of volunteers - several of whom are retired Forest Service."

The program is not accepting any more new volunteers this winter, as Brown has her hands full already. But more volunteers will be recruited next year because there are plenty of trails that need looking after.

Thirty different blue-diamond-marked trail segments (all outside of designated wilderness areas - wilderness trails are not marked by the diamond system) are available for "adoption." That simply means volunteers are matched with a specific trail that they're interested in, and on which they agree to maintain the trail markers and to notify the ranger district of any special needs that arise - such as a downed tree that needs removal or missing maps or signs that need replacing.

People who adopt trails agree to travel them at least twice in each direction during the snow season, and to hike them once before the snow falls so they can alert the Forest Service of any big problems.

Seven snow shelters popular with cross-country skiers and snowshoers are also available for "adoption."

The Jensens, for example, have adopted the Maiden Peak Shelter. They organized a volunteer work party to help Forest Service employees stock the shelter with firewood for the winter. Shelters also need occasional repair work, like the stove pipe that recently needed fixing at Fuji Shelter.

Wilken and another volunteer hiked in and did the repairs, Jensen said, but "if we had somebody adopt Fuji, then they would take care of that."

In addition to the trail inventory work and adoption programs, there are special projects that need attention - like coming up with a signage plan and names for all the trails in the Westview Loops area.

"They are very confusing for some people, and we would like to come up with an overall plan for those loops to make them easier to follow," Jensen said. "This is probably a one- to two-season job."

While volunteerism is just beginning to take root in the Middle Fork Ranger District, other National Forest winter recreation areas are deeply dependent upon volunteers. In the Bend area, for example, volunteers from a local Nordic club groom cross-country trails three days a week, are adding 14 kilometers of new ski trail and are collecting donations to light some of the trails for night use.

Middle Fork Ranger District Recreation Planner Ryan Brown can be reached at [phone] or [e-mail].