Trail Maintenance Volunteer Statistics (2026): Participation, Labor Share, Federal Hours & Program Data
Verified 2026 trail volunteer data: national participation, the $36.14 volunteer-hour value, Forest Service and BLM hours, and what it means for screening.
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Trail crews depend on volunteers more than most people realize. Public agencies and nonprofit trail groups rely on unpaid labor to clear brush, fix drainage, and rebuild tread, and the scale is large. This report, part of our volunteer statistics hub, gathers the most credible figures we could verify for 2026, from federal agencies, the Census Bureau, Independent Sector, and trail organizations, and explains what they mean for leaders who run volunteer programs.
Key takeaways
Who volunteers in America today
Formal volunteering is recovering. U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps research found that 28.3% of the population age 16 and up formally volunteered through an organization between September 2022 and September 2023, which is more than 75.7 million people. The same research found that the number of hours per volunteer kept falling, so more people are giving smaller amounts of time. That pattern matters for trail groups, which need consistent crew days rather than one-time sign-ups.
AmeriCorps also reported that the national formal volunteering rate rose by 5.1 percentage points between 2022 and 2023, according to its Volunteering and Civic Life in America research. Among age groups, AmeriCorps' 2023 survey recorded the highest formal volunteering rate, 34.1%, among 16- and 17-year-olds. If you are building a trail crew pipeline, young volunteers are a real and measurable source of labor. Our youth volunteer statistics article covers that group in more depth.
The dollar value of a volunteer hour
Most agencies and funders use one benchmark to price volunteer time. Independent Sector and the Do Good Institute put the 2025 value of a volunteer hour at $36.14, a 3.9% increase over 2024, and the organizations flagged that the 2025 figure rests on preliminary data. The estimate is tied to Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data, so it moves with private-sector pay. The organizations also note that the figure can understate the real value of volunteer service because it leaves out many intangible benefits.
State values differ a lot. The same Independent Sector series lists Mississippi at $27.01 for 2024 and Minnesota at $38.16, so a trail group that multiplies hours by a single national rate should check its state figure before reporting in-kind match to a funder. Our church volunteer retention statistics piece shows how similar valuation math applies to congregations.
Who builds and maintains trails
The best long-standing breakdown of trail labor comes from a 2015 American Hiking Society report. Among trails that member organizations build and maintain, volunteers provided 63% of the labor, paid staff 15%, government employees 11%, the Service Corps 7%, and other workers 4%. The same report found that almost 25% of Alliance members said all of the trail work on their trails was done by volunteers. Because this data is more than a decade old, treat it as a directional benchmark rather than a current measure.
Scale matters too. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy says the trail requires approximately 200,000 hours of work each year to stay open and connected. Marketplace reporting cited volunteer donations of more than a million trail hours, valued at $24 million, for the year before its 2019 story. Trail maintenance is also deeply seasonal, which is one reason why seasonal volunteer patterns matter for planning.
Federal public-lands volunteers
The U.S. Forest Service is the single largest public user of trail volunteers, and its figures show a downward drift in recent years. It reported 3 million hours in fiscal year 2020 from over 67,300 volunteers and service participants, a figure it called a 36% decline from 2019. In fiscal year 2023, the agency mobilized 71,660 volunteers, who contributed 2.6 million hours. For fiscal year 2024, the agency reported more than 82,000 volunteers contributing 2.4 million hours, valued at nearly $80 million. A Forest Service national volunteer manager gave a slightly different appraisal for the same year, about $81 million for approximately 83,000 volunteers. We show both because the agency's own numbers differ.
The National Park Service runs on a similar model. Its own 2018 announcement reported that more than 315,600 volunteers gave over 7.2 million hours in 2017. NPS guidance also sets rules that trail leaders should know. Supervisory training is required once a unit's combined volunteer hours reach 6,261 hours a year, equal to three full-time equivalents. The agency also counts only certain hours as on-duty, which is useful when you set your own tracking rules. See NPS Reference Manual 7, Chapter 10 for the reporting definitions.
