As part of our year long partnership with American Trails, Tools For Trails is stepping in and giving some advice with cowriting and editing past articles. 

 First up, choosing the right tools for building trails.

Let’s chat tools! When you first google trail building tools, you’ll receive many suggestions. There is a wide variety of tools for different jobs available from surveying to constructing to maintaining. So how do you choose the right kind of tool before heading out into the field?

Local and individual preference often dictate which tools are chosen, but many will perform better for different tasks. Before setting out into the field though, every trail worker needs to not only learn how to choose the correct tool for the job, but how to use it safely and effectively, caring for the tool, and how to store the tools.

In this article, we discuss tool safety, for volunteer and professionals alike, what goes into choosing a tool for the job, and tool repair and sharpening. There is a lot of good information in this article (we think!) so please click to read the full article on American Trails.