Hello Happy Hikers!

T'is the season for gift giving! And who doesn't deserve a gift more than you?

Let's celebrate 15 years of memorable Saturday mornings together by gifting ourselves more open and safe hiking trails.

During the 15 years we've been gathering, many trails have closed due to fires, mudslides, and erosion. . . including so many iconic ones after the recent Bridge Fire. Fortunately, the Chantry Flat area reopened in Oct. after years of backbreaking work by many local trail maintenance teams (and the work still continues there).

Join me in investing in our trails and the incredible, generous volunteers who spend their weekends working to clear and maintain them.

We'll divide whatever we raise among some of the most active SoCal trail building and maintenance groups, including the Bear Canyon Trail Crew (thank you, Abe!), San Gabriel Mountain Trail Builders, Restoration Legacy Crew, Lowelifes Respectable Citizens Club, Rubio Canyon Trail Crew, SoCal Hikers and Trail Builders and possibly a few others. Their leadership will decide how to best direct any donations to best continue their mission: replenish tools or supplies, gas money for volunteers, or buying them lunch or a beer!

Please consider contributing no more than $1 - $5 for every year you've hiked with us. If you can, donate it anonymously so whatever we raise is from our fabulous SMH community (I've never used this platform, so not sure if that's possible).

I'll cover the transaction fees as well as a platform donation to FreeFunder so your full donations go to the trail teams (click on the recommended donation link near the end and change the donation to zero). I'll keep this open until January 5 so I can report back to everyone via our SMH site before we close.

Thanks in advance and ho-ho-ho!

Shawn + our founder Antonio, and co-organizers past and present - Abe, Arianne, Austin, Cecelia, Ed, ElliotT, Eva, Gail, George, Gordon, Jenny, Kathryn, Mark E., Natalie, Nicole, Oscar & Aida, Rick, and Roger