FS Losing Most of its Trail Workers!

Normal... When I worked for them we had a huge budget cut at the time....was extremely hard to do anything. Ging to be worse we end up with the overhead people sitting in the office shuffling paper with nothing getting done I. The field. Conditions on the ground will deteriorate even more.
 
^^^ This.

And I hear from the rangers that I work with that they can't even fill the positions they have. When I was young I would have LOVED to get paid to work in the mountains, and everyone was making minimum wage. These days, young people seems to prefer to work indoors...and may even want to be paid a living wage. I can't explain the former, but I can certainly understand the latter.
 
$8.43 billion and they can't find money for this? Reeks of typical unnecessary bureaucratic overhead. There's other wasteful spending suspects as well Pig-Book. Redeploy to better use... but that's probably wishful thinking.
 
balzaccom said:
^^^ This.

And I hear from the rangers that I work with that they can't even fill the positions they have. When I was young I would have LOVED to get paid to work in the mountains, and everyone was making minimum wage. These days, young people seems to prefer to work indoors...and may even want to be paid a living wage. I can't explain the former, but I can certainly understand the latter.
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The work is too hard for them.. they might sweat
 
I know some of you worked in the field for years, but I was shocked at how difficult it can be! Just picking up logs and sawing for hours. Maybe it would be different if I was 23 years old. On the other hand, sometimes you see a couple of young rangers just installing a trail junction sign in a beautiful location and it makes you wonder if you should've spent your life working outdoors.
 
Bob said:
The work is too hard for them.. they might sweat
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I don't even think it's a concern abou that. These same young people often go to Soul Cycle and sweat bullets. But the idea of spending their time outdoors, while they could be working at an internship that leads to a career in software, is a hard one to make.
 
OldBill said:
$8.43 billion and they can't find money for this? Reeks of typical unnecessary bureaucratic overhead. There's other wasteful spending suspects as well Pig-Book. Redeploy to better use... but that's probably wishful thinking.
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Yes, trimming fat in the back office never seems to be step #1 in budget reconciliation plans.

A focused drive to generate enthusiasm for volunteer programs and participation would be great. Hell getting back to 'ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country' would solve a whole lot of problems in general, but I think that's considered fascist talk these days.
 
Starting with the next admin, it's going to get a whole lot worse on public lands with the anticipated federal budget cuts, Schedule F civil service employee firings, the appointment of pro-extraction industry people to head land agencies, and the likely of slashing of national monuments (again).
 
Gosh, do think this is a big! In what I have seen, it was relatively a few people do the trail maintenance to begin with. Sad to hear! But in the longterm this means some of that wilderness country will just be getting wilder. Thru the years have seen various trails stop being maintained. Then once some of those areas are not maintained, less people in those areas it seems. Thanks Scatman for posting.
 
fossana said:
Starting with the next admin, it's going to get a whole lot worse on public lands with the anticipated federal budget cuts, Schedule F civil service employee firings, the appointment of pro-extraction industry people to head land agencies, and the likely of slashing of national monuments (again).
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Not to mention Utah suing to take all BLM land into its own hands to make it more "profitable."
 
1) Dont get all excited about a new admin.
2) A lot of fed employees need to be fired.....
3) A lot like Kmatjhwy says..... worse trails will keep most people away...
 
I'm not one to get too worked up about administration changes but a successful turnover of BLM lands to states would be a truly awful thing... lots of bad consequences for the land. States are lining up behind Utah on this one. I don't for a second think these states will give much thought to wilderness or conservation once they get it.

I'd love to volunteer for trail maintenance, but living a few hundred miles away from most any Forest Service maintained trail system makes it pretty tough for me to do much in that regard. I am sure that I'm not at all alone in that situation.
 
b.stark said:
Not to mention Utah suing to take all BLM land into its own hands to make it more "profitable."
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If you want to know how UT will treat public lands, you only have to look at how the state trust lands are managed by UTLA. They continually put their fingers on the scale to favor cronies and land uses that align with their political agenda.

p.s. I closely watched the fumbling that happened during the first Trump admin. There will be no moderating forces this time, his policy advisors and lawyers are prepared, and he was given immunity from prosecution for "official acts". We also have a very different SCOTUS composition, and the Chevron Doctrine has been struck down during their term, meaning that any regulatory agency interpretations that are not codified into law are open to legal challenge. Schedule F was implemented by executive order near the end of his term, and undone by Biden. It will get reimplemented early. I also anticipate that NEPA will once again be weakened.
 
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Now if one wants to look at what happens when states get control of the land, then look at Texas. It is now how much all private land. Also look at the states in the east which were given their land with also now how much in private property hands. This fall have been biking down the West Coast. Here in California along the coast how much of the land is now in private hands. Then one has so much less areas to hike and explore unfortunately.
 
WHen I was doing my grad studies in Boulder, I volunteered with the FS to build a bridge on a trail in a canyon above town. It was amazingly hard work, and I'd just climbed Longs Peak and a bunch of other 14ers so was in good shape. I would think that finding volunteers for this kind of thing would be a one-off thing.
 
Rockskipper said:
WHen I was doing my grad studies in Boulder, I volunteered with the FS to build a bridge on a trail in a canyon above town. It was amazingly hard work, and I'd just climbed Longs Peak and a bunch of other 14ers so was in good shape. I would think that finding volunteers for this kind of thing would be a one-off thing.
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I think people who love the outdoors and love spending time outdoors would be willing to peel off a day or two to spend that outdoor time helping with upkeep. Colorado Fourteeners Initiative gets a lot (of brutal above treeline) work done via volunteer help.

Maybe that sort of messaging just needs to be put out there to the younger generation so that they begin to prioritize playing an active role in maintaining the resources they've inherited by luck of birth, rather than expecting some wasteful government bureaucracy to maintain it for them. I think they could be convinced to get behind it.

For god's sake these people can be convinced to eat laundry detergent...
 
Personally...... fewer maintained trails the better. Outfitter trails work fine and they minimally maintain those. I bet I get flack for this.....
 
I think it would be very productive to move all the trail signs to new spots and let the old trails grow in. I would personally volunteer for that. Make them all point back down into civilization.
 
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