Every month, we’ll be highlighting a TAMBA Trail Legend – a volunteer, donor, or community partner who’s gone above and beyond to support TAMBA’s work. None of the awesome things we achieve would be possible without the Trail Legends who work with us.
This month, we’re celebrating one of our most seasoned and dedicated trail crew leaders, Sandor Lengyel.
A bastion of trail building and maintenance on the West Shore, anyone who’s joined us for a trail work day on Stanford Rock, Kaspian Rim, or Meeks Ridge (among many others!) will know Sandor, his partner Helene, and their furry sidekick, Iris (a.k.a. Tiny Tiger). Sandor’s energy and passion for trail-building is contagious. And his homemade cookies always keep volunteers’ trail stoke well-fueled! Want to know more about what makes Sandor a true TAMBA Trail Legend? Read on…
Sandor has been a bike and outdoor trail nut most of his life. He started doing trail work with the Bicycle Trails Council of Marin around 1992 and these days, his focus is on Tahoe trails. He’s still going strong after an incredible 30 years of trail work!
Sandor’s work on Tahoe trails began around 2009 when he started writing proposals to improve trails, close connection gaps, re-route unsustainable “legacy” trails, and move away from old logging roads. In recent years, Sandor moved his focus to scoping, alignment, and planning on Tahoe trails. As a TAMBA crew leader, he has run more than 200 volunteer days. He’s also a volunteer sawyer who has cleared hundreds of trees from Tahoe trails.
On his love for trail work, Sandor says:
“Trails are bigger than any of us. Building trails is one of the few things we can do that will have a positive impact on thousands of people’s lives long after we are gone. Trails bring exercise, community, friendship, health benefits, connection to nature, those ‘Wow!’ moments, and some suffering and type 2 fun.”
Sandor’s journey as a TAMBA volunteer began as a trail user who started riding with a chainsaw to clear trails in the spring. He then began volunteering to give back to the trails that gave him so much. He became a TAMBA crew leader to “get more done and build better trails.” His trail work has evolved to running large trail projects and making Tahoe trails truly world class. He has done trail work on the TRT, Stanford Rock, Lakeview Ridge, Corral, Incense Cedar, Ocelot, Lost Lake, General Creek, Kaspian Rim, Meeks Ridge, and many other trails.
Professionally, Sandor is a Firefighter Engineer/EMT.
From all of us at TAMBA, thank you Sandor for all that you have done and continue to do!
