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88 BACKPACKER 03.2014 From the vault Read about the epic footrace to become the first hiker to yo-yo the CDT: backpacker.com/magoo. Heroes P H O T O S B Y C O U R T E S Y . T E X T B Y K R I S T Y H O L L A N D Heroes All long trails are not equal. Unlike its Triple Crown cousins, the PCT and AT, the 3,100-mile-long CDT isn’t so much a “trail” as a “route.” The 72-percent-complete corridor, marked by intermittent blazes and interrupted by private property, includes hundreds of miles strung together by roadwalks, volunteers, and hope. Wind tur- bines, clear-cuts, and drilling platforms threaten from all sides. So when the trail’s main advocacy group, the Continental Divide Trail Alliance (CDTA), collapsed in January 2012 largely due to federal funding cuts, Director of Trail Management and Operations Teresa Martinez knew the trail’s future was in jeopardy. Who would coordi- nate trail crews? Who would mobilize advocates? Martinez first fell in love with long trails through her college outdoor club and spent summers doing main- tenance on the AT. She parlayed that experience into a career representing the country’s scenic trails (first at the Appalachian Trail Coalition, then the CDTA) and ensuring access to some of America’s most beautiful places. “Getting into the wilderness changes people’s lives,” she says. “It felt wrong to abandon the CDT and the work that we’d done at the Alliance just because there wasn’t any money.” So Martinez made a decision: The momentum for protecting and maintaining the CDT would not die on her watch. Since late 2012, her commitment to the trail has meant forgoing a salary and turning down full-time jobs that would take her away from the cause. “I’ve had to cut a lot of things out of my life: I eat out less, barter with the neighbors for lawn-mowing because I can’t afford gas for my mower, and I don’t travel much any- more,” she says. “But as long as I can feed myself and the dog, I think it’s worth it.” She barely makes ends meet despite spending 80-hour work weeks dividing time between jobs at a bakery, as a lifeguard and swim coach, and at “the world headquarters of the new Continental Divide Trail Coalition (CDTC),” aka her dining room table in Pine, Colorado. “Teresa is truly an angel for the trail,” says Jim Wolf, founder of a membership- based group, the CDT Society, which sells guidebooks and maps and champions the trail in a more limited way. (Wolf calls the two groups “partners” in protecting the trail.) Last May, Martinez and a handful of other founding members of the CDTC—mostly former Alliance staffers and volunteers—officially launched a crowd-funding campaign for the CDT’s newest (and only) nonprofit advo- cacy organization. With the $37,000 they raised, in 2014 they plan to help update maps and GIS databases, weigh in on land management decisions, enlist volunteer crews to maintain 200 miles of trail, support a team of combat vet hikers through the Warrior Hike project, and advise on CDT issues at the national level. Last September, Martinez became the organization’s first paid employee (part-time). “We’re not just building a trail,” she says. “We’re building a movement on behalf of it.” Teresa Martinez, 44 BACKPACKER (ISSN 0277-867X) is published nine times a year (January, March, April, May, June, August, September, October, and November) by Cruz Bay Publish ing, Inc., 475 Sansome St., Suite 850, San Francisco, CA 94111; subscriptions are $19.98 per year in the U.S., $29.98 in Canada, $41.98 elsewhere (surface mail). Periodicals po stage paid at San Francisco, CA and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to BACKPACKER, PO Box 420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. GST #R122988611. BACKPACKER publications, including GearFinder®, Waypoints®, and Adventure Travel®, are registered trademarks of Cruz Bay Publishing, Inc. © 2014 Cruz Bay Publishing, Inc. All rights reser ved. Volume 42, Issue 310, Number 2, March 2014. Subscribers: If the postal authorities alert us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within 2 years. This activist is rallying supporters to protect the Continental Divide Trail. Step onto the Divide. There are all kinds of trips on the CDT. Don’t just hold out for your thru-hike of a lifetime; plan day, weekend, or week- long trips to remote areas or easy-access points like Grand Lake, CO, Silver City, NM, and Yellowstone National Park, which are great places to do short treks. (See backpacker.com/cdt for more ideas). Get inspired. Find the CDT com- munity in forums on Facebook, back- packer.com, trail- journals.com, and whiteblaze.net. Or, watch a movie: Mark Flagler’s Walking the Great Divide ($30), Tim Hogeboom’s CDT Diary: Montana/ Idaho ($20; both at continentaldivide- trail.org), or Shane O’Donnell’s Embrace the Brutality ($20; tbwproductions .com) provide glimpses of life- altering CDT journeys. Become a trail steward. Contributing—as a volunteer, financially, or even as a hiker or trail angel—helps grow the National Trails System and its legacy. Become a Continental Divide Trail Coalition member ($35; conti- nentaldividetrail.org) or find local trails or organizations to sup- port directly at nps .gov/nts. Take it from me… CDT GALLERY See a slideshow of great reader shots from along the whole trail: bit.ly/CDTslides.