Empowering Volunteers
Today, almost all trails on our public lands are maintained by volunteers. From team building events, to trail parties, and organizing behind the scenes, there’s a way everyone can help.
We begin with maintenance and stewardship projects that preserve current trails, with the idea that we’re not willing to lose another trail to neglect.
We’re also committed to restoring proper funding and renewing public agency interest in trails for all the proven benefits they provide for the public.
Advocating for Oregon’s Trails
Trailkeepers of Oregon (TKO) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to protect and enhance the Oregon hiking experience through stewardship, advocacy, outreach and education.
Our organization was born out of the Portland Hikers, a community forum for hiking enthusiasts that was established in 2006. As the original forum grew the name was changed to encompass all of Oregon and a user-built field guide was added. Today TKO hosts and maintains, with the help of volunteers, Oregon Hikers Forum and Oregon Hikers Field Guide.
Early on, the many volunteers behind the original hiking forum and field guide saw that many of our trails are at risk and in need of active champions and engaged stewards to advocate for them: TKO was formed by the forum community in the fall of 2007 to address these concerns.
Today TKO organizes and leads trail advocacy efforts and volunteer trail maintenance activities. Currently, TKO activities are centered around the greater Portland region, but we are gradually expanding our footprint to serve the entire state. TKO also hosts the Oregon Hikers Forum and the Oregon Hikers Field Guide as part of our continuing outreach and education efforts.
TKO is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to trail stewardship, advocacy and education in Oregon.
2025 by the numbers
567,272
Feet of trail improved
507
Stewardship events
3,580
Volunteers
$813,960
In-Kind value of Volunteer time
Our Mission
Stewardship
The heart of TKO’s mission is our effort to build, restore and maintain hiking trails across the state, including:
- Trail maintenance: continuing efforts to provide routine maintenance to existing trails
- Trail restoration: special efforts to restore old trails lost to lack of maintenance
- New trail construction: funding, planning and construction of new trails in cooperation with land management agencies and private land owners
Advocacy
TKO is actively committed to promoting hikers’ interests in Oregon by:
- Representing hikers when advocating to state and federal agencies, elected officials and other organizations that impact the hiking experience
- Raising funds from public and private sources for the preservation and expansion of Oregon’s trail system
- Protecting hiking opportunities by tracking and prioritizing trail needs across the state, then building comprehensive strategies to address these needs
- Advocating for a range of trails and hiking experiences that are accessible and available to all people, regardless of income level, ethnicity, gender, ability or age.
- Ensuring that access to trails is provided on an equitable basis to all communities served by public agencies under the principle that it is a right, not just a privilege, for people to have safe healthful access to their public lands.
Outreach and Education
We promote hiking as an activity that creates healthy Oregonians and fosters ownership and conservation of our public lands:
- Encouraging stewardship as a responsibility for every trail user
- Building an infrastructure to connect volunteers with stewardship opportunities statewide
- Partnering with, consulting with and supporting like-minded outdoor organizations
- Teaching the health benefits of connecting with the outdoor world
- Educating hikers on trail ethics, safety and conservation of our public lands
- Conducting training and certifying volunteers for trail work
- Preserving the history of foot trails and hikers in the State of Oregon
- Communicating news, issues and events
- Sharing the hiking experience with traditionally under-represented communities
Taking Action to Save Oregon’s Trails
Over the course of 2019, TKO underwent an update to our 10-year plan, special thanks to our TKO board, volunteers and staff during that time who helped bring together that original document.
In 2023, the TKO Board, staff and their committees recognized that many objectives set in the plan developed in 2019 were being met and surpassed. We also recognized that the COVID-19 global pandemic and social justice challenges that followed changed our approach to a number of activities and our role in steering change in Oregon. From March 2023 through January 2024, Board committees and staff focused on the Impact Goal Area pages within the plan and asked the questions of:
- What objectives within our current Impact Goal Areas have been met and how can we refresh a larger goal?
- Are those objectives still relevant after so much change since the global pandemic?
- Are there more clear ways to share new initiatives to be included in the plan?
Existing committees on Stewardship, Advocacy, Communications and Executive refreshed strategic impacts and objectives pages and our new committees DEI and Fundraising established completely new Impact Goal Areas with corresponding objectives. We are now happy to share a newly adopted update to the plan approved in January 2024.