Pictures: Swamp Crew
The smiling faces below belong to a volunteer work crew that completed major and expensive repairs in 2012 to an older elevated footbridge-boardwalk in a potentially wet segment of the Grand Valley Trail south of Kitchener.
Some hiking organizations, like the Grand Valley Trail and the Avon Trail, have a mandate of acquiring a trail and maintaining it. Most hiking groups do not own the land, so permission is sought from land owners and, once granted, the volunteers build and then maintain the trail. In some places the trail is a footpath while in others it may coincide with a wider trail that is maintained by a municipality or conservation authority.
Links to more pictures:
Snowstools | A "Pileated" White Pine | Red Trillium Variant at Huron Natural Area | Snowshoe at rare Charitable Research Reserve 2014 | A Story of Two Amulrees & The Highland Clearances | The Swamp Crew | Tynemouth Hooligans | "Wild Turkeys" | Hackberry | Turk's-cap Lily | Snowshoeing at Petersburg Tract 2015 | Niagara Glen | Massasauga rattlesnake | We Hiked the Bruce Trail In Small Doses | Frogs Croaking at Huron Natural Area | Female flower of Black Pine | Canada Goose Nesting | Red-Tailed Hawks | Snapping Turtle | Thistles & Tongue Twister ... more to follow .