In 1987 Roger Bell was way ahead of the trail building curve with a handful of other trail contractors when he started Bellfree Contractors with two of his brothers and some nephews. That was 10 years after the Western Trail Builders Association was founded in 76, which became the PTBA in 2004. Roger’s brother Harvey was one of the founders of the Western Trail Builder’s Association. Roger was on the American Trails Board since 96. He was an OG.
His story of exiting one profession to enter the trail world is probably not unique, though interesting nonetheless. After a summer stint or two on a trail crew with his brothers he was hooked, he left his role as a Dean of Students at the University of Redlands, CA. UCLA and the University of Washington were cheaper back then, he got his PhD in 1971 from the latter, and besides sunk costs being a fallacy of sorts, I assume it gave him some grounding for his future on trails. I left education for some of the same reasons Roger did, we had that connection in common when we first met, and his story certainly pushed me over the edge to help validate my getting off the fence between schools and trails, or trail school.
Roger Bell’s trail journey ended Feb 8th this year, but thousands of trail users in ~14 states continue to tread on his creations, and many more if we consider all the people he educated and trained in the trail world.
In January 2009, Hans Keifer became the new owner of Bellfree Contractors. I joined Hans for multiple jobs in southern California not long after that. I met Roger a handful of times. I think he and Hans continued to check in to make sure the transition of ownership was smooth and successful etc., but Hans would have to confirm this. I know Hans was excited and proud to continue where Bellfree had left off. That’s what I recall anyway. I was shy in general, and intimidated by Roger to say the least, but he was nice, and we had the “I left education” connection. The timing was right for me to some degree as well because in 2010 thousands of teachers got pink slips. Though it was feast or famine in general around that time for trails as well in So-Cal as trails weren’t a priority for many communities at that time and the environmental hurdles made trail building difficult. By 2012 during another lull in trail work with Bellfree I found something back east that I thought I would try. On my way east, somewhere around Colorado with a car full of my belongings, NPS called me, I almost turned around, but decided to follow through with a Hudson Valley adventure that still continues. I suppose there is a fair chance an NPS job could have ended this year under DOGE, Destruction of Government by Elon, but maybe the ripple effects will catch me eventually.
Upon revisiting Roger’s somewhat silly or corny, yet funny, entertaining, and instructive Trail Tales book, I had completely forgotten that he signed it. Nothing long, just “Erik- Enjoy, Roger.” Thank you Roger! I have a hornet story or two of my own now Roger, and even went to Niagara Falls to work, twice! I think Roger gifted the book to me when we visited his house in Redlands, but sadly I don’t remember, nor when he signed it.
Sadly there is not much on the web about Roger, but I assume lots of people have stories to share out there. Hopefully there will be something forthcoming from PTBA or others about Roger Bell. I asked Trail Eaffect to interview him, but not sure that it happened soon enough. RIP Roger.