Community volunteers spent Sunday working to improve sections of the walking and hiking trails that snake through Cape Elizabeth.

Residents gave their time and efforts to complete work on three bridges that have been under construction in the Stonegate Trail area. Others worked in the Gull Crest Trail region building boardwalks. The network of trails totals about 12 miles.

“Hopefully, we can eventually get officially recognized trails running from here (the Stonegate Trail) to Crescent Beach,” said Carole Haas, a member of the Cape Elizabeth Conservation Commission and a volunteer on Sunday. She said she has been working on Cape trails since moving to the town 11 years ago.

The Stonegate Trail is between Shore Road and Mitchell Road and is accessible by Stonegate Road, Rock Crest Drive, Dyer Pond Road and Locksley Road. It connects with the Robinson Woods Trail.

On the cloudy Sunday, at about 10:30 a.m., Haas and her family were moving pre-cut, pressure-treated lumber down to the site of the bridge work. The bridge spans over what residents call Oakhurst Creek, because it runs out of Oakhurst Swamp. Her husband, Dodd Haas, 56, and their son, Conor, 17, were filling up wheelbarrows with lumber and attempting the quarter-mile trek to the bridge.

As lumber began to stack up at the site, volunteers pulled out hammers and nails to start attaching treads for the bridge. Steel beams covered with pressure-treated lumber had already been laid as a foundation for the bridge during previous trail-work weekends, most recently Oct. 22.

Haas said the beams had been hauled in with the use of an ATV and a trailer. The beams themselves were left over from the recent high school construction project, and the town bought the pressure-treated lumber for trail building, said Haas.

Don Hotchkiss was leading the hammering on the bridge before being retrieved by his wife for a trip Down East, but it wasn’t long before Dean Dadmun showed up to take his place.

Dadmun, 44, of Preble Street, arrived at about 11 a.m. with a hammer and a tool belt. He quickly busied himself with a ramp leading to the bridge.

“My family uses the Cape trails, so I figure it is a good way to give back,” said Dadmun, who has a 6-year-old and 12-year-old daughters. Dadmun said he has been involved in numerous trail projects over the years, and it was his second time working on the bridge.

The Sunday temperatures had a winter bite in the air and recent rains made the work muddy, but the volunteers’ spirits were high as the work kept them warm.

Haas, 55, moved to Cape Elizabeth with her family 11 years ago. She said before they decided on their Locksley Road home they had gone to look at a town map to find a residence near nature trails. She said they have been working to improve the town trails ever since.

Some of this year’s projects included a Fowler Road connection to the Gull Crest Trails, rebuilding a bridge at Great Pond, where vandalism had occurred and a Fenway Road trail, said Haas. The bridge over Oakhurst Creek was one of three bridges constructed on the Stonegate Trail.

Haas said anyone who sees work is needed on the trails is welcome to go ahead, gather some friends and get it done. She said she hopes the town will eventually create trail easements connecting all of Cape Elizabeth

Conor Haas, 17, hammers in a tread for a bridge on Sunday, Nov. 19.Dean Dadmun, 44, works on a ramp leading up a bridge crossing Oakhurst Creek.One of the three bridges on the Stonegate Trail that was built during the fall.