Lifetime Achievement Award nomination
Dave Skinner
Dave Skinner is a local and regional legend among National Park Service trail volunteers and hikers. Dave chooses to maintain several of the most remote, rugged and difficult Wilderness trails within Olympic National Park, trails which might have been abandoned if not for his efforts. For seven years, he has cleared the incredibly rugged Queets Skyline Primitive Trail and Big Creek Trail, a 26-mile subalpine route which presents an enormous logistical challenge. He chose to reopen and maintain the difficult Barnes Creek Trail and upper Barnes Creek Primitive Trail (8.6 miles) and its steep connecting Aurora Creek Trail (3.4 miles) and Aurora Ridge Trail and Aurora Divide Trail (21 miles). He maintains the Rugged Ridge - Indian Pass Trail (6.6 miles) to the Bogachiel River. He maintains the North Fork Sol Duc Trail (9 miles), rebuilt extensive sections of it, destroyed by floods in 1999 and 2005, and replaced its 70-foot span trail footlog. These trails, in the Olympic rain forest, each often experience more than a hundred windfall trees greater than three feet and up to five feet in diameter each year, in addition to large old-growth rootball tearouts, destruction of stream crossings and slides on steep terrain. Dave returns year after year to rebuild them and keep them open, the highest testament to his quiet perseverance.
In 2000, Dave organized and led the complete restoration by volunteers of the North Fork Sol Duc Shelter, an historic structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He also serves as volunteer seasonal Backcountry Ranger at Snow Dome hut ranger station on Mount Olympus, where he personally raised donations to accomplish its recent re-roofing and complete restoration.
In 2011, he was a feature story-teller in the film "Out of the Mist: Olympic Wilderness Stories" produced by Crest Productions. For 2015, he was selected "Most Inspirational Friend of Olympic National Park" by the Park's Friends group.
Dave is a retired trail crew leader for Olympic National Park, and as an unpaid volunteer, each year quietly tackles more trail work than most paid seasonal trail workers are physically capable of accomplishing.
This nomination is made jointly by:
Rod Farlee, vice-president, Friends of Olympic National Park, phone 360-681-4518,
Ernie Vail, retired Trail Foreman, Olympic National Park, phone 360-452-5867, and
Ray Lovely, retired Volunteer Coordinator, Olympic National Park, phone 360-452-6180.