Donate to PATC's Keep it Standing Campaign
How Far Will Your Gift Go?
You have the power to support PATC’s work, including road repairs, boundary monitoring, privy maintenance, mapping, and the operational backbone that keeps 1,200 miles of trail, 49 cabins, and nearly 3,500 acres of wild land open and cared for.
This spring, we're asking you to help PATC raise $25,000 by June 15 — to fund the behind-the-scenes work that makes everything else possible.
We all know the feeling. You turn off the highway. The road narrows. Pavement gives way to gravel, and the noise of everyday life fades behind you. You're almost there — the trailhead, the cabin, the quiet you've been looking for all week.
Robert Frost called it "the road less traveled by." A choice that makes all the difference.
For thousands of hikers, volunteers, and cabin visitors each year, that road is real — and it's gravel. It’s the road that winds back into the wild places PATC has protected for nearly a century.
Here's something most people never think about: For every mile of trail you can see, there's a longer list of work you can't. It happens off-camera and mostly off the radar — carried out by people who understand that the experience of the escaping into nature depends on everything surrounding it. Here are just a few things you might not know PATC takes care of:
- Gravel access roads to trailheads and cabins take a beating every winter from ice and runoff — and need constant attention so that volunteers, cabin guests, and hikers can get where they're going safely.
- Dozens of boundary monitors walk the perimeters of PATC's lands each year, resetting markers to protect the natural spaces we steward.
- Privies at backcountry shelters need regular maintenance, cleaning, and even occasional full rebuilds. Last season, one burned to the ground. Another was destroyed by a bear!
- Volunteer cartographers and GIS specialists work year-round to update PATC's maps as trails change, reroute, and expand — so that the map in a hiker's hand matches the ground underfoot.
- And with cabins and tracts of land all over our region, PATC files taxes in eleven different jurisdictions to maintain the legal standing that makes all of this work possible.
None of this is glamorous. None of it makes for a great Instagram post. But without it, the work stops. Volunteers can't reach their sections. Cabin guests can't get in. Hikers follow maps that no longer match the trail. And the wild spaces that people depend on for restoration, connection, and escape quietly become inaccessible — not all at once, but one neglected detail at a time.
This spring, we're asking you to help PATC raise $25,000 by June 15 — to fund the behind-the-scenes work that makes everything else possible.
Your gift supports the full picture of PATC’s work, including road repairs, boundary monitoring, privy maintenance, mapping, and the operational backbone that keeps 1,200 miles of trail, 49 cabins, and nearly 3,500 acres of wild land open and cared for.
Jim Fetig, PATC President
If you'd like to help us effect even more change, without taking any extra steps, click here to set up a recurring donation.