John and June at Gregory Hiking Trail.
John Copeland, owner of the Kennebec Trail Company, got his start in trails with the Maine Appalachian Trail Club in 2003.
Beginning as a volunteer, he returned to lead crews for several seasons under the supervision of modern trail pioneer Lester Kenway.
John went on to run the Adopt-a-Peak program for the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, overseeing trail maintenance on Colorado’s highest peaks before joining a professional trail construction firm and pursuing project work in Colorado and the Dakotas.
Equestrian trail at Little Missouri State Park in North Dakota.
Mountain bike trail at Hanson-Larson Memorial Park in Rapid City, South Dakota.
In 2009 and 2010, John helped to complete the then longest ever re-route of the Appalachian Trail, over Bear Mountain, in New York. He spent the next several seasons working on a variety of hand and machine-built natural surface and surfaced trail projects serving different user groups.
In 2012, having settled with his now wife in New York, he gave up the business, only returning to it upon his long-expected return to Maine, to raise a family, in 2018, when he formed the Kennebec Trail Company.
Erin, June, Faye.