Nelson Kline
TKO Crew Leader
TKO crew leader Nelson Kline has deep roots in Oregon. “I’m a fifth generation Oregonian,” he said. “My grandfather was a logger and my dad was a forester, so I grew up camping, hiking, backpacking, rock climbing, skiing–all the outdoorsy stuff.”
Nelson was born and raised in Salem, and he’s passionate about caring for trails in the Central Valley. He started out volunteering as a crew leader for Portland-focused organizations like the Forest Park Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy, and Friends of Trees, but he wanted to make a difference closer to home. “I was looking for projects in the Central Valley areas that I recreate in, so up to Santiam Canyon and out towards the coast, and so I connected with TKO in 2019.”
Nelson has been leading TKO projects in the area since 2021. Part of his work has been focused on the Oregon Coast Trail, with projects in the Siuslaw National Forest and near Cascade Head. He also leads trail crews in the Santiam Foothills and throughout the Central Valley. Shellburg Falls stands out as a particularly meaningful project for Nelson. “I was working on building one of the bridges there the day before my dad passed away,” Nelson said. “There are certain trail moments or places that have memories like that.”
In recent years, one of Nelson’s favorite trails to work on has been the North Rim Trail at Silver Falls State Park. “It was pretty cool because it was brand new start to finish,” he said. “We roughed it in; we graveled, we built a fifty-five foot fiberglass bridge. So it took years to do that.”
For Nelson, Trail Parties offer a welcome change of scenery from his day job working in I.T., and they help motivate him to spend more time outside. “Trail Parties sort of force you to get out there,” Nelson said. “So even if it’s a bad day, if you were going to hike on your own, you might say, ‘Nah, I’ll skip it.’ But if you have, five volunteers signed up and waiting for you in the parking lot, then you just throw on your rig gear and go.”
Living in Salem also gives Nelson the opportunity to stand up for trails in another way–through advocacy work. He frequents the State Capitol to support bills that protect Oregon’s public lands, wildlife, and trail systems, often working with the Oregon Trails Coalition to lobby, testify, and write letters. “We’re trying to get everybody together who are trail stewards,” Nelson said. “You’ve got snowmobilers and horseback riders, and mountain bikers. Sometimes it feels like there’s sort of a turf war on some stuff, like, ‘That’s our trail,’ or ‘Oh, the darn mountain bikers, or the horse people,’ or something like that, but what we all have in common is we want to take care of the trails, and we want access to them. So that’s been a big passion of mine, is just trying to get everybody on board with taking care of this resource.”
When asked what being a Trailkeeper means to him, Nelson said, “It’s stewardship. My sense of identity is very Oregonian, having been here my whole life. But that’s the best commonality that I think people can and should get behind, is taking care of our state, and the things that we have access to–public lands.”
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