Today’s trailblazers don’t work outside unless it’s their day off. They don’t get paid to dig in the dirt either. They’re volunteers, but in the woods they look a lot like the nation’s original trailblazers, the Civilian Conservation Corps. President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the public works program in 1933 to revive America during the Great Depression. With nearly 300 work camps in Idaho, the Gem State was the heart of the CCC.

Nearly a century later, the tools are the same and the intensity of the labor is the same, but the motivation for putting in sweat equity is different. Instead of pulling the nation out of the Great Depression, today’s trail crews keep access open for all. And they do it for free.

Outdoor Idaho discovers how public land is evolving from a network of paths once curated by the nation’s CCC to a labor of love tended by the users of the dusty system. They are outfitters in the Palisades and trail runners around Pocatello. They are water bar builders out of Boise and mountain bikers in Salmon. They are Idaho’s Trailblazers.