Trail Work After the Storm: Backslope Tools and the SORBA Hurricane Helene Recovery Effort

Hurricane Helene hit the Southeast hard in the fall of 2024. Rivers flooded. Roads washed out. And trails that trail crews spent years building were buried, eroded, or simply gone.

Trail crews don't wait for someone else to fix it. They show up.

The SORBA Central Savannah River Area chapter has been doing exactly that. Since Helene came through, the volunteers and crew members at SORBA CSRA have been out there doing recovery work. Clearing debris. Rebuilding structure. Restoring the trails that their community depends on.

That kind of work takes time, it takes people, and it takes tools.

The Most Successful Independent Membership Drive in SORBA History

In May 2026, SORBA ran its most successful independent membership drive ever. Chapters across the Southeast rallied their communities. Members joined, renewed, and upgraded. The message was clear: trails are worth fighting for, and the people who build them deserve support.

At the end of the drive, SORBA awarded a $500 Backslope Tools prize package to the winning chapter. The winner was SORBA CSRA.

We didn't pick CSRA because of their social media presence or because it made for a good story. SORBA picked them because their chapter showed up. And because the work they're doing in the wake of Hurricane Helene is exactly the kind of trail stewardship that deserves recognition and real resources.

What $500 in Trail Building Tools Actually Gets You

Five hundred dollars in professional-grade trail building tools goes a long way when you're doing recovery work. The CSRA chapter will put Backslope Tools equipment to work on real trail days, not just for photos.

Our tools are built for this. Steel heads, fiberglass handles, bolt construction. No epoxy joints that fail when the work gets hard. No cheap hardware that strips after a season. The Fuse handle system means a damaged handle gets replaced in five minutes in the field, not back at the shop.

Trail maintenance tools need to withstand the conditions that wrecked the trails in the first place. That's not marketing copy. That's the design requirement we started with.

Why the SORBA Partnership Matters to Us

Backslope Tools has been a SORBA partner for a while now. We believe in what they're building across the Southeast, and we've seen what their chapters do with real support.

We're a small company. Assembled in Colorado. We don't have a national advertising budget or a team of reps on the road. What we have is tools that work, a community that uses them, and a genuine interest in keeping trails open for the people who ride, hike, and run them.

Sponsoring the SORBA membership drive prize wasn't a complicated decision. Trail crews need tools. We make tools. The math is pretty simple.

Supporting Trail Work in Your Region

If you're a trail builder or trail volunteer looking for professional-grade trail building tools that hold up to real work, we'd be glad to have you look at what we make. The Clyde, Clyde Pro, Bert, and Blaze are all designed specifically for trail construction and maintenance work.

And if you're not already a SORBA member, go check them out. The chapters doing recovery work in the Southeast need support. Membership is one of the most direct ways to give it to them.

Thanks to everyone who supported SORBA this May. And thank you to SORBA CSRA for the work you're doing out there.

Team Backslope Tools

Assembled in Colorado.