Nearly 30 volunteers gathered on a humid day at Peters Mountain, about 10 minutes west of downtown Franklin, to learn trail-building skills and begin work on the new Peters Mountain Trail System in the Monongahela National Forest.
Peters Mountain sits beneath the impressive North Fork Mountain in the dry, rocky shale barrens of West Virginia’s Valley and Ridge Province, terrain that offers a unique outdoor experience from the rest of the Monongahela’s high-elevation spruce forests. The weather, however, did not cooperate with the setting. Volunteers worked through fog and steady rain, spread across more than a hundred feet of corridor with assembly-line precision, shoveling, raking, tamping, and lopping their way through the wet ground.
The training was led by the Mon Forest Towns Partnership’s local representatives, West Virginia University’s Outdoor Economic Development Collaborative and the Monongahela National Forest. Rich Edwards and Logan Chapman of the OEDC guided volunteers of all ages alongside forest service staff, covering work safety and the techniques for building trails that last.
Volunteers learned to use a suite of tools from the OEDC’s mobile tool lab, from familiar loppers and rakes to trail-specific implements like the McLeod and the Pulaski. Instruction also covered techniques for managing water on the trail, including how to implement grade dips and the angle of backslopes, the details that determine where water flows and ultimately, whether a trail holds up for days or for decades.
“Twenty years from now, you’ll be able to hike this trail and see moss growing on the stones you put down,” Chapman said.
That long view shaped the day. “We want the trail to look like it just dropped out of the sky,” Edwards remarked. He pointed to the lineage of American trail work to explain the standard. “Many of the trails you see today across America are almost 100 years old and were built by the CCC and WPA, people who knew what they were doing. Now we’re in the third great trail-building renaissance; we want these trails to last a hundred years as well.”
The work is part of a nearly three-mile looped shared-use trail system currently in development, one piece of the Mon Forest Towns Partnership’s broader effort to connect downtowns to nearby forest assets and enhance West Virginia’s growing outdoor recreation economy. The trails offer young people a place to gain hands-on experience at a time of rising demand for trail builders across the region.
“Visitors to Franklin and Pendleton County fall in love with the natural beauty here every day,” added Annie Humes, director of the Pendleton County Convention and Visitors Bureau. “This project is already connecting our residents to those natural spaces, giving local folks the chance to be hands-on with the work of responsible development of public access at the Peters Mountain trail. This trail will make our public forest land more accessible for both visitors and locals for years to come.”
The training followed a Franklin community meeting held the day before, where residents discussed outdoor recreation, business, and community development opportunities for the area. Both events are part of the Partnership’s ARC POWER grant and downtown connectivity work.
For Michelle Connor, Franklin’s Mon Forest Town representative, the site carries particular meaning. “The location of this trail is important to our community,” Connor said. “The Welcome to the Monongahela National Forest sign is highly visible along US-33 and stands right next to an iconic piece of our local history, a one-room schoolhouse constructed through a partnership between our local school system and the US Forest Service in 1940. This school served our community for decades and is a reminder of the continued interdependence between our community and the national forest.”
For Connor, who brought her 10- and 16-year-old sons to the training, and other parents in the audience, the focus was on the next generation. “Over 85 years later, this same piece of property is being used to foster local learning opportunities and empower youth,” she commented.
The Peters Mountain Trail System is not yet open to the public. Organizers plan to keep the momentum going with continued community events through the summer. Those interested in future workdays or being part of the community conversation can connect with the or for more information.
