Trail work is rewarding. It’s why we do it. We get to see the immediate fruits of our labor and know we are contributing to both an immediate and a longer term, larger cause, keeping access to public lands open and allowing others to experience the mental and physical nourishment of the outdoors, but there’s another reward I feel, increasingly, is just as important: friendship.

A few weeks ago, while having coffee with two ITA crew leaders and discussing their experiences this season, one of them commented that they attribute several new friendships to ITA projects. I know I do, and I wondered how many other volunteers now counted as friends people they first met staring across a log at them, pulling (not pushing, never pushing!) the other end of a crosscut or commiserating about lopper elbow after a long day of brushing. So, I asked. Over the next few blog posts, we want to share a  stories of friendships forged on the trail in a thinly-veiled attempt to get more volunteers out on projects and add another bullet to the already-long list of why trail work is awesome.

Sharing experiences creates bonds, a community, especially when those experiences involve challenge, dirt, and living together, even for a night, with only each other for entertainment. Trails give people a reason to come together, a topic to start a conversation about. The shared work of a project, whether it’s a day or a week, allows friendships to begin that may not have been. Do trail work for the trails, of course, but next time you sign up for that project you don’t know anyone on, remember you just might leave with a new and lasting best buddy you wouldn’t have met in your normal routine!

Enjoy this first story of how ITA Board Member, Crewleader extraordinaire, and Women in the Wild Program founder Pam Bond met longtime ITA volunteer and Boise comic Beth Norton, told from both Beth and Pam’s perspectives.

Pam’s Perspective (aka Pam’s side of the story):

I knew Beth Norton before she knew me, watching her light up the comedy stage in Boise for years. Her humor is an irresistible blend of social commentary and jokes sharp enough to make you blush—especially the guys. I admired her from a distance, thinking, “Wow, this woman is the coolest!” A local celebrity.

About seven years ago, Beth came to a presentation I was giving for ITA on essential backpacking gear. Among the crowd of outdoor enthusiasts eager for tips and tricks, I spotted her. I don’t remember if we exchanged words that night, but after that, our paths serendipitously crossed again. I stopped at Barbarian Brewing after work, and there she was—behind the bar. That night, she finally put a name to the type of beer I like. For years, I’d been asking for “baby IPAs,” since I don’t care for the super hoppy stuff.  Beth said, “Oh, you like East Coast style IPAs.” Yes! I could finally order a beer like a grownup.

Beth and I have had what I’d call a slow-burn friendship, a connection sparked by chance and kindled by time. As the years passed, we began meeting up more often, and I now consider her a true friend. Although we both have a deep love for Idaho’s wilder places, most of our time together has been spent in the front country: solving the world’s problems during an early morning foothills hike, attending a Shakespeare play that takes me 20 minutes to grasp, or soaking up the sunshine during a park lunch. Strangely, we’ve never been on a backpacking trip together outside of ITA—the timing has just never aligned. Here’s to someday!

ITA is definitely a tie that binds. Beth and I have participated in several women-only projects together, and I’ve seen firsthand her natural leadership skills. This year, I finally convinced her to attend Crew Leader College. She co-led a 5-day trip on Queens River this year with me, and I can see her leading trips in the future. Another ITA lady legend in the making? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Beth’s Perspective 

It was on the hike out, on my first trail work trip, a week-long on the Alice-Toxaway Loop, when I first heard her name. Crew Leader Tim and I were chatting, “I love maps,” I told Tim, feeling wistful and lonely already amongst the older men and their teenage children. “Oh, well if you love maps, you should meet Pam Bond.” The song of a thousand angels rang out. This was 2017, just before Pam started the Women’s Only Weekend (WOW) program. I survived that trip but felt isolated as the only woman my age and I vowed never to do a trail work trip again without at least one friend and with this beacon of hope, this Pam Bond.

The first time I saw Pam, she was teaching an ITA class on how to pack a backpack over at the old Idaho Fish & Game building. I swooned as Pam neatly folded her quilt and explained she was a tummy sleeper and how the quilt allowed her arms to move freely. I marveled at her systems and her short blond hair. Her precise, yet kind way of explaining these ordinary objects without sentimentality but in a way that made them seem to mean something more.

In 2019, I signed up for my first WOW trip, in partnership with the Wood River Trails Coalition on the trail to Baker Lake. The night before we set to work, we were all invited to a BBQ by a local woman. It was at a rustic cabin near the trailhead with a large sunny deck and the nicest pit toilet ever. There was Pam, beer in hand, easily carrying on a conversation, short hair picking up the evening summer sun.

I continued to follow Pam around on WOW trips like a stalker puppy without a mother. I was always hoping a little of her self-assuredness and stamina in the backcountry would rub off on me. Pam and I would run into each other from time-to-time around town too, at the brewery or one of my shows. Eventually we developed what I call a “front-country friendship.” She is one of those rare people who knows how to make a plan and stick to it, and who always shows up. She is one of the few people in my life who has never let me down and who I trust completely. But if you know Pam, it’s easy to understand why.

It wasn’t until this year that my dream came true, and Pam and I spent some real time in the back-country together. On a 5-day backpacking WOW trip up the Queen’s River Trail, a small crew of six women cleared 50 trees- some big, complicated, suspended- and brushed at least a mile of trail. In the evenings we played clever word games and laughed in the dry riverbed that was our kitchen or huddled under the tarp around the tools when it rained. On the last night Pam and I ended the game when a word came up neither of us knew the definition for but somehow knew we were thinking of the same word. We looked each other in the eyes and yelled AUSTERE! Over each other we fell, laughing.