Kinsee Morlan: Welcome to KSUT's "Community Voices," the locally produced monthly program highlighting nonprofits throughout the Four Corners area. For the month of June, we're focusing on Trails 2000, a Durango-based nonprofit that is literally out there blazing trails.

Nat sound: Walking along the trail.

Kinsee: That's the sound of footsteps crunching along Horse Gulch, one of the hundreds of stretches of paths Trails 2000 director Mary Monroe and her troop of dedicated volunteers look after.

Mary Monroe: Trails organizations are very important around the country in terms of protecting trails that are there, educating trail users, helping to create stewards of the land. Because once people get out and they experience the trail system, they feel a sense of ownership and that sense of ownership creates protection of sort, they want to make sure the trials are in shape and make sure the trails aren't abused and that turns into coming back and volunteering. Kinsee: Mary is actually the only fulltime employee at Trails 2000. She relies solely on the organization's membership, which is a network of outdoor-loving volunteers who both support Trails 2000 through membership fees and by getting out on the trails during workdays and getting their hands dirty. Trail building and maintenance isn't easy but, if like me you pictured someone going out into the wilderness with a machete, it's a little more evolved then that.

Mary: You first have to figure out who owns the land, then work with that land owner, then look at some top maps. Then after that we go out and we us an instrument called a "clino" and that determines the grade of the trail. So, we try to build trails between 8 and 12 percent with some variants depending on if there's a climb or a switch back. Then we rough leg it, go through the brush and flag it and figure out what the best alignment is. And then, once we've determined all that and have approval for it and buy in, then we'll go back and then we go back and flag it again so that where we thought the trail was going to be located it's actually located. And then after that we start to schedule the trail work days and start the actual construction and bench cutting and switch backs and whatever technical aspect of the trail we're constructing.

Kinsee: Horse Gulch, for example, the biking, hiking and horse trail off 8th and third in Druango that Mary, her daughter Zara and I were on the day we talked, is a mix of county, city, private and Fort Lewis College-owned land. Trails 2000 went in and negotiated with all the land owners, and now they can call the trail system a pretty major success.

Mary: We've been able to create a total trail network that has about 80 miles of trail and they're all single track and they all connect all the way up into the college, and the BLM estimates that this area receives between 40 to 60,000 visitors a year.

Kinsee: Trails 2000 has been around for almost 20 years. Mary's been with the organization for just the last three, so she's quick to acknowledge her predecessors when talking about successes. Bill Manning, the director who handed her the reigns, played a major role in getting the Main Avenue underpass built, among other things. And Mary's picked up where he left off and is currently working on getting the Camino Del Rio underpass underway because as she explains, part of Trails 2000's job is to make it easier for people to get from their houses to the trails without having to drive to a trail head.

Mary: The idea of connectivity is very important to Trails 2000, so we advocate for bike path and underpass and safe road connections and street crossing and the types of things you can consider as far as connectivity, how people can get from their house to the trails is really important if you really want to think about getting people out of their cars and doing things, you have to think about point a to point b.

Kinsee: And once people are on the trails, another role the organization plays is educating users on proper trail etiquette.

Mary: The whole idea of education on the trails and sharing the trails is super important, especially as more and more people are getting outside and especially in Durango where it's such a cornerstone of what makes Durango Durango and, we spend a lot of time on education and I would say most people really get it, they really understand that if you're on a bik and you're going downhill you pull over and wait for the hiker going uphill and everyone yields to horses.

Kinsee: So while Trails 2000 continues its work on things like Smart 160, the purposed trail from Bayfield to Durango , GPSing local trails for map updates, and removing stuck Hummers from Horse Gulch - which really did happen last fall - hikers, bikers, runners and horseback riders who don't even know that Trails 2000 exists can continue to benefit from the organizations work. But as Mary tells it, there are so many people in and around Durango who do realize that trails don't just build and maintain themselves, that the trails won't disappear anytime soon.

Mary: Using the trails are free, so giving back to all that everyone uses and supports is just wonderful and we receive such great support from the community.

Kinsee: To support Trails 2000 yourself, or to find trail maps, descriptions of trails, or more info on how to volunteer or become a member, visit trails2000.org. For KSUT's Community Voices, I'm Kinsee Morlan.