Anne Griffin

I absolutely loved caring for runners on Hope Pass. It was incredible. I would give that experience 5 stars.

However, communication before and during our volunteer shift was not acceptable. Our shift time changed a while back, which was fine. But from then on, we kept getting conflicting messages about the actual time of our shift. It wasn't until I sent a direct message to the coordinator that we finally received word on what time we were supposed to be there, where we were to meet and what to expect.

Even that communication led us to believe things that turned out not to be so. We were told there would be food for volunteers. There was not. We hiked 2.5 hours up to the pass and were not offered anything to eat all day. We grabbed a couple things from the runner's food tent before our descent 6 hours later. When we arrived at the site, we were never given any instructions on what we should do. Many people sat around for 2-3 hours doing nothing. Once runners started showing up, we all began to jump in and help them, but again, we were never instructed as to what would be most helpful.

The email also instructed us to grab a t-shirt at our aid station. There were none. We ended up getting them back down at Twin Lakes after the fact.

All of this could have been avoided with better communication. If we had been told there would be no food, we would have packed lunches. It would be great for Aid Station Captains to hold a brief meeting with all volunteers to let them know what is expected and how they can be most helpful. There are a lot of specific ways that we can be helpful to runners and those should be explained to volunteers. I honestly believe we could improve the success rate of the LT100 Trail run if volunteers understood how to better care for runners coming in for aid. Again, this is not the fault of the volunteers. This needs to be communicated via email ahead of time or by aid station captains upon arrival.

I'd be happy to share more of those ideas, if contacted.