OLYMPIA — A state grant of more than $70,000 will go toward hiring youth crews in Jefferson and Clallam counties to maintain a trail in the Olympic Mountains.
The state Recreation and Conservation Funding Board has awarded $70,911 to the Pacific Northwest Trail Association, it announced Wednesday.
The association will use the grant to support crews that maintain 120 miles of the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail on the Olympic Peninsula.
The grant will pay for work in both Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Crews will work from Snow Creek/Mount Zion through Gold Creek, the Upper Dungeness and the Buckhorn Wilderness to the Olympic National Park boundary, as well as the High and Low Divide trails on the Upper Sol Duc and the upper and lower Bogachiel River.
The trail crews include the SKY Program for at-risk youths, which is supported by the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Jefferson and Clallam County commissioners, the Back Country Horsemen of Washington and the Chimacum, Port Townsend, Port Angeles and Forks school districts.
The trail association will contribute $72,000 in donations of equipment and labor.
The grant money is from the federal Recreational Trails Program, funded by federal gas taxes, which provides money to maintain backcountry trails.
The grant was among 21 totaling nearly
$1.6 million provided to improve parks, trails and ballfields.
Project awards also were made in Benton, Chelan, Clark, Cowlitz, King, Kittitas, Lewis, Skagit, Skamania, Snohomish, Whatcom and Yakima counties.
In addition to the recreation trails program, funding for the state grants comes from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, funded by federal revenue from selling and leasing off-shore oil and gas resources, and the Youth Athletic Facilities fund, which is used to build and maintain sports fields.
Funding comes from the sale of state general obligation bonds.