The club has volunteer opportunities that are administrative in nature. It takes a lot of planning and organization to support the efforts to keep the trail and shelters maintained. To join one of our AT Maintainer Committee sub-committees, contact a sub-committee chair for your area of interest: https://smhclub.org/atmc-leadership

The club divides the trail into sections of one to three miles and assigns Section Leaders who schedule their own maintenance trips, usually one-day outings. We ask our Section Leaders to get on their sections 4 times per year to conduct basic maintenance. Basic maintenance includes cutting back brush and weeds to clear the trail corridor, cleaning out water drainages to reduce erosion, and filling in washed-out areas around steps. As Section Leaders gain more experience and expertise, they can also add rock and log treadway structures on their sections. Section Leaders report significant trail issues to appropriate sub-committee chairs so that larger work projects can be coordinated.

The club conducts one-day group work trips on the first Saturday of each month, March through November. These work trips are designed to address issues on a section that are larger than a Section Leader may be able to address. Experienced maintainer volunteers will lead the trips and will provide on-the-job training for new maintainers. These work trips are also a good way for maintainers to gain additional skills and learn techniques of trail construction and repair. Specifics regarding these monthly work trips are included in the club’s newsletters.

The club maintains ten (10) backcountry moldering (compost) privies at shelters along the Appalachian Trail. The moldering process requires that mulch be added to the privy after each use. It requires roughly 500 pounds of mulch per privy annually. Volunteers coordinate with the Mulch team to acquire 20-pound bags to haul to the backcountry locations.