Tara Spear and Mike Bousquet: A Day in the Life of the Trail Conference

January 21, 2018
Staff
New York-New Jersey Trail Conference

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Tara Spear and Mike Bousquet: A Day in the Life of the Trail Conference

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Trail Conference Role: Trail Maintainers

Tara Spear and Mike Bousquet love getting outdoors to give back to the trail community. “We hike a lot,” Tara says. “We’re in the woods anyway, so it just made sense to do something useful while we’re on the trails.”

Tara thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2016, and for her birthday, Mike surprised her by adopting her very own stretch of her favorite trail. The Hewitt, N.J., couple maintains two sections of the A.T. in Wawayanda State Park.

“We’re really particular about picking up trash,” Mike says. So they created the group Make West Milford Clean Again to tackle the trash problem at Wawayanda’s Terrace Pond. Tara, an Applied Behavior Analysis School Therapist and grad student, also volunteers for New Jersey Search and Rescue in West Milford.

Their favorite part of the job is “connecting with people who are into the outdoors and encouraging people to leave no trace,” Mike, an engineer, says. “I love being a part of a 2,000-plus-mile trail community,” Tara adds. “Trail maintainers help make it all possible.”