For nearly half a century, residents of Centre County, Pennsylvania enjoyed fishing and paddling at Colyer Lake. Then in 2013, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission announced that it was going to permanently drain the lake due to structural issues with the dam. Having deemed Colyer Lake a low priority for repair, officials planned to allow it to renaturalize. For those living around the scenic 67-acre lake, that news was hard to swallow.

Nestled deep in the rolling hills of southern Ohio about an hour and a half’s drive from Cincinnati and not far from the Kentucky border are 20,000 acres of mostly deciduous forest and some prairie that are owned and protected by the Nature Conservancy. The Edge of Appalachia Nature Preserve is home to about 100 different kinds of rare plants and animals, including two federally listed bats and a snake that is considered an endangered species by the state of Ohio.

Over the years, Sara Gatewood has gone from being an occasional trail work volunteer to being a professional trailbuilder. Today you can find her working for Dirt Artisans - both on the trail and in the office; she wears multiple hats. Sometimes, that means spending all day outdoors in the field, mostly hand finishing trails. Other days, it means hours in front of the computer, tracking and taking care of essential company administrative tasks.

University students Olivia Ashbaugh and Christopher Johnson spend most of the year attending classes and studying, but both also love being outdoors. So when the opportunity arose for them to join the Dirt Artisans team building trails in the woods back home this summer, they jumped on it. “My dad is a member of the Northern Allegheny Mountain Bike Association (NAMBA) and heard that Dirt Artisans was considering hiring a local person,” said Olivia, who is studying Veterinary and Biomedical Science with a minor in International Agriculture at Penn State University.

Chad Irey used to spend his work days managing multi-million dollar construction projects and his free time riding and hiking and taking care of his local trails as a volunteer. He had gotten into construction as a skilled carpenter, and over time, his jobs and responsibilities grew, eventually morphing into a time and energy-consuming commercial construction career. He found himself tied more and more to his desk, and he missed being outside and working with his hands.