When Carol Bickel of Slippery Rock passes around photos of her summer vacation, the pictures won’t be the typical beach shots or tourist traps.

It’s more likely to be of Bickel and her husband Steve cutting brush, hauling rocks or lugging buckets of dirt.

That’s because the Bickels spend their vacations as volunteer labor to help maintain hiking trails across the country. They are part of a little-known trend that has vacationers foregoing traditional rest and relaxation for sometimes rugged accommodations and a week of labor.

Why would anyone do such a thing?

“You get an opportunity to see the land from a different perspective than from that as tourist,” said Carol Bickel. “And the people you meet are just fantastic. They are really exciting people.”

Bickel has gone on 10 such volunteer trips arranged through the American Hiking Society, contributing to projects across the country and as far away as Hawaii. The hiking society is based in Silver Springs, Md.

Her husband has been able to accompany her on two volunteer trips, including a week last summer at Pictured Rocks on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where they helped reconstruct a trail.

“We dug fill from an inconspicuous area and carried it by the bucketful to the trail,” Bickel said. “Most of the time, we were carrying two 5-gallon buckets.”

Bickel says she enjoys the change of pace from her usual occupation as an art teacher at Moniteau High School.“This is physical labor and I like that. Everyday, you can see what you’ve done. There is always that reward at the end of the day when you walk back over the trail and see what you’ve done.”Butler County benefited from the society’s volunteer vacation program in June when a crew built a handicapped-accessible walkway at the Bear Run Launch Area of Moraine State Park.The trip was arranged by AHS in cooperation with the North Country Trail Association and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.A crew of a dozen people came from Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri and Connecticut as well as Erie and Dillsburg, Pa., to work on the Moraine project.They also constructed a deck and several benches at the log cabin of the Davis Hollow Marina. The walkway, deck and benches were designed by site foreman Joe Burton, 73, who has worked on more than 80 projects in 21 states over the past 10 years.The cabin, which the association leases, served as base camp for the crew during their stay.“It was definitely fun,” said 15-year-old Dale Becker of Cincinnati, Ohio. “I think everybody had a great time. We worked during the day, but during the evening we had time to relax and goof off.”Dale was on the Bear Run crew along with brother Brett, 17, and his parents, Douglas and Cindy Becker. It was the Becker family’s first volunteer trip.“Normally when we request individuals for a project, they do come from everywhere. All over the country,” said Dave Myers of Greenville, president of the Butler County Chapter of the North Country Trail Association.Tonya Tschesnok, a public relations spokesperson for the Sierra Club, agrees that a sense of satisfaction and community is a key motivator for volunteers. The club, based in San Francisco, sponsors about 80 service trips annually.“They are tremendously popular,” she said. “We have been doing them for about 25 years. This has been really central to our organization for a long time. It really bonds people together as a group, and we get tremendously positive feedback from our services.”

Both Myers and Tschesnok stressed that trips are not all work and no play.“All of our trips have a recreational component,” Tschesnok said, noting that a day is usually reserved for touring, sightseeing or some other area recreational activities. “We make a great effort to make it fun as well as satisfying.”The American Hiking Society and Sierra Club are just two of the many organizations which offer volunteer service trips as part of their program.Both organizations make information about their volunteer trips available on their Web sites.Descriptions include detailed information about the project and location, the type and difficulty of the work and the comfort level of accommodations, as well as recreational activities in the area.“They are very well described so there are no surprises. We do a really good job of communicating so everyone gets what they are looking for,” said Tschesnok.Both organizations offer a wide range of trips, from projects suitable for families or senior citizens to strenuous backpacking into remote areas.Participants say the advantages of taking a volunteer vacation are many. The cost is much lower than a typical vacation. A nominal fee covers costs such as food and paperwork.Participants provide their own transportation from their homes to the general project location. Airport pickup is sometimes provided. Some project sites are easily accessible, while others can only be reached by backpacking.Accommodations on a volunteer trip can range from cabins to primitive camping.“It takes a particular type of individual,” Myers. “”Each person has their own reasons for doing this — a sense of satisfaction.”Another common thread is what Myers called an “adventurous spirit.”“You meet all these people for the first time,” he said. “Sometimes they know each other from previous trips, but not usually. People have fun,” he said.“They enjoy it and they come from all over. They have varying levels of experience. Some of them are skilled and some of them aren’t, but they all learn.”Tschesnok agrees.“It gives people a sense of accomplishment. You can sit at a beach for a week and at the end of it, what have you done to make the world a better place?”