For the past several years the Nevada All-State Trail Riders, Inc., has made a generous contribution to the AERC trails fund. Their donations, along with the generous donations of members and others, have allowed us to begin the AERC trails grants program.

The intent of our trails grants is two-fold: to train endurance riders on the proper way to maintain and build trails, and to provide funding for trail repair or re-build and to provide funding for trail signage.

All of our work to train riders and re-build trails is of course meant to keep us on our trails. In our day-to-day efforts to keep our trails open itŐs extremely important that our land managers see us a partners. Working with them to keep the resource in tip-top shape is in everyone's best interest.

There is a serious backlog of maintenance on our trails. However, with the new fee demo program becoming a permanent part of our life, more money will be available to hit the ground. We need to be prepared to work with our federal land agencies in the decision-making process on how they will spend the money. We must be in the position to provide well-trained riders for projects proposed by land managers.

In each state our trail advocates will be working with the land managers in making the decisions as to how money will be spent. More than ever it is very important for you to work with your trail advocates to get the job done. This is an opportunity to increase our working relationships with our land managers.

I would like to see each and every rider contributing a minimum of 20 person-hours per year to trail maintenance projects. That would put about 120,000 labor hours, or $1,800,000 worth of labor, into our trails each year. That is a significant number. If you cannot commit to the labor hours please consider a contribution to the trails fund.

A huge thank you goes out to Julie Suhr for her contributions to the trails fund. Through the sale of her book, "Ten Feet Tall, Still," Julie contributed $3,393.50 in 2004.

For those of you who have sent in a contribution I'd like to thank each and every one of you. For those of you who are off your horse and working on your trails, you deserve thanks and a standing ovation. For those of you on the sidelines watching all of this work take place, it's never to late to get involved. Trail work is fun. You spend a day with your friends; the work is hard, but the rewards are simply the best.

Our first AERC trail master course is scheduled for May 4-7 in Parker, Colorado. We have 10 slots open for Mountain Region riders. If you can attend, please contact me at 812-499-6904 or jerryfruth@US-ETC.org for more information. The class is free to the riders who participate--your trails fund money at work.