ELYRIA — He goes by Bud.

Beyond that, details are a little fuzzy, according to Metro Parks workers.

They first started seeing the gray-bearded gentleman nearly a year ago when he came to use the Bridgeway trail. He walked, they said, and stretched on the trail’s benches.

Then he found a greater calling — clearing trash from not just the trail, but the hillsides that surround it.

More photos below.

“No words can explain” the difference he makes, according to Paul Hruby Jr., operations supervisor and chief ranger. “These are areas we could never get to. We just don’t have the manpower.”

Still, Bud remains quite a mystery.

“Unless you go looking for him, he’s gone,” according to Tim Perkins, a park maintenance worker.

Bud, who the Metro Parks workers estimate is in his late 50s or early 60s, shows up every day, rain or shine about 8 or 8:30 a.m. and works tirelessly for two to three hours. Some of the trash he clears was dumped over the hill by residents in South Lorain, other trash blows from their yards or washes down the river. Bud scales the hills and goes places court-ordered community service workers refuse to go, they said.

“Even a nasty day like today, he was out,” Hruby said.

Bud bags up and carries out what he can, Hruby said. The rest he leaves in bags alongside the trail, where park maintenance workers can easily retrieve it.

And then there’s his pile.

Workers estimate it’s about six feet tall, 10 feet wide and nearly 30 feet long, and it’s stacked neatly with care. It contains everything from about 50 tires, to multiple shopping carts, discarded toys — essentially, all the trash Bud manages to drag out of the woods but can’t haul out of the park.

Around Christmastime, workers started to figure out who Bud was. Hruby said he left his business card on Bud’s car once he figured out what he drove.

“He thought he was in trouble, but I just wanted to thank him,” Hruby said. “I even offered him a job, but he wasn’t interested. He said he was trying to make a difference.”

They think Bud might be a Ford autoworker and might live on or off of Abbe Road.

“He doesn’t want a job, he doesn’t want anything, he’s not looking for recognition,” said Mike Goodrich, Metro Parks captain and ranger specialist. “He just does it because he loves it.”

While park workers make plans to truck Bud’s large pile out of the woods near the trail, they’re just grateful for the unexpected help he provides.

“With trash it’s a constant battle,” Hruby said. “We have to mow the grass and maintain the trash (along the trail). We just don’t have the manpower. We’re blessed to have him.”

“It’s kind of nice to know there are still a few people in the world like that,” Perkins added.

Contact Rona Proudfoot at 329-7124 or rproudfoot@chroniclet.com.