Trail Angels exists for all of the major trail hikes in USA and around the world. Some trails have organized trail angel communications while MOST trails do not!
2026 Trail Angel Central Conference – DRAFT COPY – December 2025
Trail Angel Central Conference 2026
TrailAngelCentral.org
Friday May 29 – Sunday May 31, 2026
Pinecrest, California USA
Pinecrest Lake, California
The first, annual, worldwide- Trail Angel Central (TAC) Conference is now being planned for Spring 2026 in the central Sierras – Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) traill town of Pinecrest,, California where TAC is currently organized.
Location:
This central Sierra PCT hiker town of Pinecrest, California, is a great place to gather like minded Trail Angels / hikers with options for attendees to explore high Sierra trails or simply relax in this mountain lake community before and after this event. This location is about 3 hours from the San Francisco Bay Area (SFO, San Jose and Oakland airports) and Sacramento area offering workable fly/drive or drive options. Pinecrest is about 2 hours from Yosemite National Park or Tahoe Lake too.
Audience:
This conference will be offered to Trail Angels and hikers worldwide who want to be part of this important organizational effort to better define and promote Trail Angels and Hiker connection for success. Anticipated attendees size is 25-40 persons for this first year event.
Get Involved
At the bottom of this document is information on how to get involved in the planning and final execution of this event.
Conference Mission Statement:
This is a worldwide open conference devoted to everything Trail Angels! Much of the discussions, focus, and direction will be at the consensus of the attending members before the event.
- Create a strategic plan with mission statement and general goals and action plan for Trail Angel Central organization and expand its leadership and partners
- Offer inspirational sharing and collaborating sessions with Trail angels and hikers offering best practices and sharing of ideas.
- Documenting best practices and inspirational stories for release on the website and future newsletters
- Educating trail angels and hikers of the vast differences and unique challenges that each trail community experiences and what solutions and best practices they have implemented.
- Helping educate trail angels and hikers that trail organizations (PCTA, ATC, Colorado Trail, etc ) do have completely different approaches for supporting and general respect for trail angels and their participation in the trail community.
- Invite Trail managers from PCTA, ATC, etc to attend to get them more involved in supporting trail angels and to understand their perspectives.
- Creating a best practices guide for Trail Angels and guides for how hikers can best support trail angels for sustainable experiences too.
- Reviewing, understanding and creating a strategy to counter the commercialization of trail community services at the expense of replacing trail angels offerings.
- New topics, ideas and experiences that trail angels have weathered thru and came to solutions that are valuable to future trail angels in other trail communities.
- Offer some affirmation to trail angels that their services are beneficial, important, valuable to the trail communities as well as the intrinsic value in human to human sharing that is an activity worthy of defending.
- Enjoy time with fellow trail angels and potentially develop new connections that encourages travel to each other’s trail communities and offerings.
- Some PCT hikers maybe hiking thru this PCT area in early June and to get their perspectives and feedback on trail angels.
- Multiple fun events in Pinecrest and at the lake including hiking, kayaking, sailing as well as fun and social meals together to help build this conference community.
- Other ideas created by event planners.
- Video Recording and then publishing on the Trail Angel Central website the findings and results of the conference to share to the world best practices for trail angeling.
At the end of the event, we would hope all of the participants will
Feel they have contributed to a group effort to define, organize and document Trail Angel activities that will promote “Connection of Trail Angels and Hikers for Success”
Be inspired by other Trail Angels or hikers and now implement new practices themselves for better Trail Angel and hiker successes.
Have found a new set of peers from which they can continue to connect with, support and ask questions for continuing to support their own best trail angeling practices.
The Trail Angel community at large will have access to a thoughtful set of documents show casing best practices, recommendations and inspirational ideas from this first conference.
Conference Agenda
The final agenda will ultimately be decided by those attendees wishing to help organize and steer this event. Here is an initial schedule to start to frame the conference and the exchange of ideas.
Friday
12 noon to 6 PM – Event Check and afternoon socials
Dinner 6-8 PM
Final Event Organizing / Set up 8 -10 PM
Saturday
6 AM Optional morning lake walk
7:30-9 AM – Breakfast and coffee and opening session, TAC history and presenters
9:30 – 10:45 – Break out session 1 – Trail Angel Central – Mission and definitions, expanded leadership roles and opportunities
11-12:30 Break out session 2 – Inspirational Stories of Trail Angels / Hikers
12:30-1:30 Lunch
2 PM-3:30 Trail Angel issues and solutions – Best Practices
3:30 Break
4-5:30 PM Trail Organizations (PCTA, ATC, etc) – Integration and support and related issues, etc
6-7:30 PM Dinner
8-10 PM Fun social event – Campfire, dance, etc
Sunday –
6 AM optional lake walk/run
7:30-8:30 AM Breakfast and coffee, networking
9-10:30 AM – Round table discussion – Best Practices for Trail Angels and hikers
11 to 12:30 – Getting the word out – Marketing of TAC best practices, Trail Towns, etc
12:30 -1:30 PM Lunch
1:30 to 3PM – FInal closing session, conference wrapup.
3-6 PM Lake activity – Kayaking, sailing, etc
6-8 PM Lake side BBQ – Optional
Monday – (For those opting to stay longer)
Options include:
- PCT Trail Day hike – 9 AM-3 PM – North or south hike
- Pinecrest area trails hike and lake adventures – 9 AM-3 PM
- Other group activity
- Group dinner – 6-8 PM Pinecrest
Sponsorship opportunities
This event will certainly be a not for profit event but will require costs for some space rental at the Pinecrest Community Lodge and other conference materials and food for attendees during the event. 2-4 sponsors could be mentioned in conference materials and in short presentations at the event to help defray costs for attendees.
Attendees Costs:
Each attendees must pay for their own travel to and from Pinecrest. Coordination of attendees to share transportation is certainly possible as trail angels are experts at this.
A conference fee of $100-$300 per person will be set to pay for event space, meals (Friday PM to Sunday Lunch) and any event materials. Fee cost TBD – but will be budget minded.
Lodging:
Lodging in Pinecrest can vary from local Trail Angel Cabins (free) to staying at the local resort or hotels, or camping in the campground, or staying at the Pinecrest Community Lodge rooms. More information providing the options will be available closer to the event.
Sonora Pass Trail Angel Cabin in Pinecrest
Getting involved
Feel free to jump in and be part of the planning team for this exciting and first year event. Please contact Scott Vanderlip, TAC founder and current organizer at TrailAngelCentral@gmail.com or 650 793-0475. TAC is NOT a registered 501 c3 but just a website/ organization group to promote best practices for Trail Angeling worldwide. More information is available on the TrailAngelCentral.org website.
LOCATION: TBD
An Central Trail Angel Conference event could be planned for the 2025 where trail angels nationally can meet in a physical location (or optionally virtually) to attend a 2 day conference. The purpose of this conference is:
Let trail angels from all various trail to:
Meet and network with other angles
Offer presentations, suggestions, discuss best practices
Review hiker / angel communication tools, resources,
Develop materials that can be distributed to help foster new angels on any trail for the future in various towns or road crossings, etc.
Find shared issues such as Angel burn out or other issues that prevent or impact Angels from getting a full sense of enjoyment from their volunteering efforts
Understand the various trail networks in America and how they are similar and different in their needs and requirements
If you are interested to attend or to help organize, please contact event organizers at
Trail Angel Central 