Salida Mountain Trails would like to thank the Salida community for coming out for our first annual membership program kickoff party at the Boathouse on May 3rd. With over 140 new members, it exceeded our expectations nearly three-fold. The funds raised allow us to leverage the work of our volunteers to complete some of our pending trail projects this summer. Some may think “trails just happen,” but the fact is that we depend on our volunteers as well as donations to fulfill our mission of “building and maintaining sustainable, non-motorized, multi-user trails on public lands near the city of Salida.” With trail costs running anywhere from $3-6 per linear foot, and because SMT has no paid staff, these funds directly impact our ability to deliver on our mission.
We feel the trails are an asset to our community and its quality of life, even playing a role in Salida’s economic development. While the majority of new members were from Salida, we also had members from New Mexico, Arkansas, Minnesota, and Kansas, as well as numerous cities within Colorado, proving our trails reach far beyond our locale.
We’d like to take a moment to thank the many people that helped make this event possible.
First, we thank our local shops that made our membership program possible by providing discounts (and donating to SMT) for our members who show their membership card. This includes: Absolute Bikes, Salida Bike Company, Salida Mountain Sports, and Subculture Cyclery. We thank our party sponsors who helped make our party possible: Tanda CAD Design, Orion Integration Services, Yolo Clothing, Larry Kovacic, Powell & Murphy PC, Pinon Real Estate and Vacation Rentals, and Recreation Engineering and Planning (Gary Lacy PE). We thank the Boathouse for their ongoing corporate sponsorship program of the optional 1% added to your bill for trails. We thank all the donors to our Silent Auction, especially Nord Cycles (nordbicycles.com) for the donation of a custom bike frame. We thank our membership committee for all the help with gathering publicity, gathering silent auction items, and making the evening run smoothly. And finally, we thank the Arkansas Valley Libation Society and Elevation Beer Company for providing discounted benefit beer, the No Name Band for great music, and the Boathouse staff for food/beer and great facility… And anyone else we may have forgotten. Thanks making our event such a success.
We have much work planned including the Lost Trail reroute, Cottonwood Trail, and the South Backbone Trail. Thanks to donors, these funds let us build approximately a half mile of trail. If you hike, bike, run, walk your dogs on our trails, we’d encourage you to visit our website at salidamountaintrails.org for more information about our organization, including volunteering, our membership program, or simply donating.
If there is one thing this event proved to us is that Salidians love their trails. Stay tuned for a fun fall event too!
Sincerely,
Andrew Koransky
Salida Mountain Trails Board Member
Membership Committee Chair