Butler Freeport Community Trail gears up for the season
Nestled in the woods along Little Buffalo Creek, the Butler Freeport Community Trail spans 21 miles connecting the two municipalities. Open since 1989, the trail gives residents the option for a scenic and safe walk, run or bike ride through nature.
The biggest fundraising events to help maintain the trail are a membership drive in April and the Buffalo Creek Half Marathon in October. The 2026 race will be the 21st year of the half marathon, held on the third Saturday in October. This year’s will be held Oct. 17.
Despite ups and downs in attendance over the past years, registration for the trail’s half marathon is still on the uptick, according to Chris Ziegler, president of the trail board.
Birds and More Nature Hikes led by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania occur on Tuesday mornings through the end of October. Karen Stein, the director of the Butler Audubon Center, said participants need no prior experience in bird watching to attend a hike.
“You can come and it can be kind of your foray into learning a little bit about it from people who really are experts that come along with us,” Stein said.
The funding from those events helps with trail maintenance, whether that be a drainage problem or a tree down on the trail.
“So we have income for the first part of the year to sort of operate, get through the winter, and then we have income that comes in the late fall, and that gets us through the winter because we do a lot of winter work,” Ziegler said.
Upcoming Events on the Butler Freeport Community Trail
Birds and More Hikes
Buffalo Creek Half Marathon
Aside from the timing service they pay for, everyone helping out before, on and after race day are volunteers from all over.
Ziegler said there are more than 100 people involved, including Girl Scouts of the USA, Scouting America, cross country teams, radio clubs and more.
Volunteers show up to help when alerted for a work day on the trail, as well. While the current challenge is downed trees and other storm debris, they do a plethora of trail maintenance from equipment upkeep to pipe replacements.
The number of volunteers depends on day, time and weather, but volunteers always show up ready to handle whatever problem is thrown their way.
“It is just volunteers. If there’s a tree down, somebody has to let us know, because we don’t have the capacity to go check every day. Plus we don’t want to drive on the trail unnecessarily,” Ziegler said.
Facebook groups make it easier for those doing the upkeep to know when and where there’s a problem on the trail. Ziegler said it’s helpful for them to have a photo and a direction the problem is in. Most of the time, it’s cleaned up quickly by volunteers who have the means to do it.
Looking to the future, the trail board wants to build a garage on a trailside property to store their equipment.
It’s been a concern for a few years as they save money. Without a garage, the equipment the board has acquired over the years is stored outside.
“We invested a lot of time and money in that. A garage is absolutely our necessity at the moment,” Ziegler said.
