Get out, Make a Difference

balzaccom

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I spend a fair amount of time as a volunteer in the National Forests. Last year, it was about 250 hours. We count those hours because the USFS encourages its staff to develop a volunteer program and use it to increate the amount of work that can get done in the National Forests.

The good news is that with the infrastructure bill, the USFS does have more money this year, and we've noticed additional staff on hand, as well as a lot of work getting done. That's the good news. The bad news is that there is still a ton of work to do. And there is still a greet need for volunteers who are willing to help out.

We love this work. It puts us into contact with a great bunch of people who love the mountains and are willing to do their part to make them better. Sometimes that means improving trails, sometimes it means restoring areas that have been overly impacted by visitors, sometimes it just means hiking the trails, cleaning up the trash or talking to visitors. In every case, it means getting out into the mountains with a purpose. And that's a great thing.

If you are interested in doing something like this, check out the links below. We work with all of these groups, and they all do great work. Plus, they're all really good people.

https://mokewv.org/ The Mokelumne Wilderness Volunteers--a small group that does amazing work just south of Lake Tahoe.

https://www.desowv.org/ The Desolation Wilderness Volunteers--a much larger group that works west of Lake Tahoe, both in the Tahoe Basin and on the west side of the Crystral Range.

https://mariposatrails.org/ A grass-roots organization that develops and maintains trails just west of Yosemite.

https://www.cserc.org/ A non-profit that works to protect the resources of tne Central Sierra, which includes doing some volunteer work for the Stanilaus National Forest.
 
Thanks for all your awesome work! Increasingly here in Alberta, it is volunteers that look after much of the trail building and maintenance, with the government providing infrastructure such as parking lots, trailhead facilities and signage. Plus a bit of funding for the hard working volunteer trail associations, hopefully. Here in Calgary, it's been an uphill battle with city bureaucracy for the Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance to get approval for much needed routine maintenance projects, which has driven many of us to simply go ahead and do it under the radar- "easier to ask for forgiveness than permission".
We had a great turnout on Wednesday to build a bridge across a spring fed wet area, and do repairs to 4 other bridges.
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Not my picture, I'm the guy leaning on the pulaski.
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Volunteering- it's fun and satisfying to know that you have made a difference!
 
Various BLM units also just got an influx of federal funding for environmental restoration, including $19M for Upper Bear River and Color Country (SW) in Utah combined, plus another $5 for the AZ Strip/Grand Canyon N Rim. Here's a map of the units and funding. I expect specific projects to be announced in the upcoming months.

There are other ways to help out for those less able to do trail maintenance, like plant and wildlife surveys.
 
I've helped out a lot, but it gets tiring as everyone wants me to carry everything.
 
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As Fossna notes, volunteers can also help out in a variety of ways. Some of our program include issuing wilderness permits, counting visitors on trails, and even answering questions at the trailhead. All of those free up paid staff to take on larger tasks, or supervise crews in the wilderness.
 
As Fossna notes, volunteers can also help out in a variety of ways. Some of our program include issuing wilderness permits, counting visitors on trails, and even answering questions at the trailhead. All of those free up paid staff to take on larger tasks, or supervise crews in the wilderness.
Absolutely! There is a lot more than just grunt work involved:
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Bragg Creek Trails in the foothills west of Calgary has grown from a bit of an underused backwater 15 years ago, to a major all-season destination thanks to volunteer work, and is now at the point where there are a handful of paid staff.
 
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