WTA has spent sixty years building toward a single vision: trails for everyone, forever

Jaime Loucky is the CEO of the Washington Trails Association, one of the largest trail stewardship nonprofits in the United States. Founded in 1966 by Louise Marshall as Signpost Magazine, a grassroots newsletter assembled at her kitchen table to share backcountry conditions and advocate for public lands, WTA has spent sixty years building toward a single vision: trails for everyone, forever. The organization now facilitates more than 160,000 hours of volunteer trail work each year, runs gear lending libraries that generated 5,000 outdoor experiences for youth last year alone, and serves one to two million website visitors monthly looking for reliable information about where and how to get outside. The sixtieth anniversary arrives at a moment when the public lands those trails cross are under serious pressure.

A central concept in the conversation is what Jaime calls the flywheel: the cycle by which high-quality trail information draws people outside, outdoor experiences build personal connection, and connection generates the volunteers, donors, and advocates who keep public lands accessible. That flywheel is under stress. In 2025, federal staffing cuts eliminated hundreds of Forest Service and National Park Service positions across Washington State, including all but three of the thirteen-person recreation team managing the Enchantments, one of the state’s most-visited backcountry landscapes. Jaime describes what a trail nonprofit does when agency partners disappear, how WTA has expanded paid professional crews into post-wildfire backcountry areas that volunteers cannot safely work in, and why urban day work parties in city parks are not a retreat from the wilderness mission but a genuine entry point for the next generation of trail stewards.

The episode is also about coalition. Jaime identifies the fourth pillar of WTA’s new strategic plan, building an outdoors movement, as the one that excites him most: uniting recreation groups, conservation organizations, hunters and anglers, and motorized users around shared public lands interests, a coordination that has not historically happened at the scale the current moment requires. The question he is working toward is not whether people care about public lands, because they do across the political spectrum, but whether they can be organized to show it before the losses become permanent.

In this episode:

• WTA’s origin and sixty-year arc — Louise Marshall founded Signpost Magazine at her kitchen table in 1966 to share trail conditions and advocate for public lands; that dual identity as both information source and advocacy voice has been part of WTA’s DNA from the start, and the organization’s daughter shared memories of those early days.
• The flywheel model — WTA connects trail information, outdoor access, volunteer stewardship, and advocacy into a self-reinforcing cycle: people get outside, build a personal connection to place, give back through trail work, and become defenders of the lands they love.
• 160,000 hours of trail work per year — WTA volunteers contribute more than 160,000 hours of trail maintenance annually, roughly five million dollars in contributed labor; when WTA is fully staffed for the season, it is comparable in size and scale to any national forest recreation department.
• Federal staffing cuts and the void they create — The 2025 cuts to Forest Service and National Park Service staff, including a reduction of the Enchantments recreation team from thirteen people to three, eliminated the agency partners that nonprofits rely on to direct and receive volunteer work; WTA has been working to fill that gap while continuing to advocate for the restoration of agency capacity.
• Urban trail work and post-wildfire professional crews — Expanding into urban parks and county green spaces creates accessible entry points for new volunteers and builds local community connection to trail stewardship; paid professional crews handle technical post-wildfire restoration in backcountry areas, opening terrain for volunteer crews to follow.
• Gear lending libraries and youth access — WTA’s Community Partnership and Leadership Development program provides outdoor leadership training and free gear loans to community groups; the program generated 5,000 outdoor experiences last year for youth who could not otherwise afford equipment, with every piece of gear checked out on some summer weekends.
• Building an outdoors movement — The pillar Jaime identifies as most exciting: uniting recreation groups, conservation organizations, hunters and anglers, and motorized users around shared public lands interests, a cross-sector coalition that has not historically coordinated at the scale the current moment requires.
• Trails for everyone, forever — WTA’s North Star vision, which Jaime describes not as a destination but as a direction; the “forever” and “everyone” pieces are inseparable, because the long-term protection of public lands depends on building a broad community that actively values and uses them.
• How to get involved — WTA’s free hiking guide and trail conditions database serves millions of visitors; work parties across the state are open to anyone with no prior experience required; the Trail Action Network connects supporters to advocacy opportunities; gear lending and youth programs serve communities across Washington.

Links & Resources

Organizations & Initiatives:

• Washington Trails Association (WTA) — A Seattle-based nonprofit founded in 1966 that connects hikers to trail information, coordinates volunteer trail maintenance across Washington State, and advocates for public lands at the state and federal level.
  • Connect with WTA on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, and YouTube.
    
• Trail Action Network — WTA’s advocacy program connecting supporters to opportunities to contact elected officials about trail funding and public lands protection.
• Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS) — A conservation organization Bill Hodge founded and Anders Reynolds later chaired, referenced as context for the month-of-stewards theme; executive director Kaitlin de Varona is an upcoming guest on The Wild Idea.

Places & Landscapes:

• The Enchantments — A heavily visited backcountry landscape in Washington’s Cascade Mountains where the dedicated federal recreation team was reduced from thirteen employees to three in the 2025 staffing cuts, referenced as a concrete example of what agency capacity loss looks like on the ground.
• Mount Baker — A glacier-covered volcano in northwestern Washington near Bellingham where Jaime had the childhood hiking experiences, including a sunrise summit with panoramic views of the North Cascades and San Juan Islands, that shaped his relationship with the outdoors.
• Tacoma, Washington — A city where WTA conducts volunteer work parties, including with youth from communities that live within sight of Mount Rainier but have never had the opportunity to visit it.
• Linville Gorge Wilderness — A North Carolina wilderness area where Bill and Anders first worked together on the Hawksbill Trail, referenced in the episode’s opening conversation as the origin of their friendship and shared commitment to stewardship.

People Mentioned:

• Louise Marshall — Founder of the Washington Trails Association, who started Signpost Magazine at her kitchen table in 1966 to share trail conditions and advocate for public lands; her daughter has spoken publicly about memories of those early days.
• Doreese Norman — WTA staff member who connected Bill Hodge with Jaime Loucky for this episode, credited by Bill at the close of the conversation.

Featured photograph for this episode by Scott Malagold.

Growing up in Bellingham, with the North Cascades practically in his backyard, Jaime Loucky developed a lifelong passion for hiking, backpacking and spending time in the beautiful outdoors. Jaime arrived at WTA in early 2020 and served as WTA’s first Chief Impact Officer, overseeing strategic planning and program operations.

He was selected by the board to be the CEO in 2022 and remains committed to helping advance WTA’s vision of Trails for Everyone, Forever and connecting hikers and everyone who loves the outdoors with opportunities to get outside and give back to trails. In his free time Jaime enjoys gardening, getting out on trail work parties a few times a year, the occasional multi-day backpacking trip, and of course taking his daughters Sasha and Avy out on trail any chance he gets.

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