STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Wanted: Wilderness Stewards who love what’s outside our back door and want to help protect it.
The Idaho Conservation League is again recruiting outdoor enthusiasts to become wilderness stewards in Central Idaho’s backcountry.
It’s accepting applications through Tuesday, May 15. Applications are available online at https://www.idahoconservation.org/blog/apply-for-the-2018-central-idaho-wilderness-stewardship-program/
Stewards are assigned the mission to restore, protect and enhance wilderness character within the newly designated Hemingway-Boulders, Jim McClure-Jerry Peak and White Clouds wilderness areas, as well as the Sawtooth Wilderness through citizen and community engagement.
The U.S. Forest Service and ICL initiated the program in 2016.Volunteer stewards must commit a minimum of four patrols from June 11 to Nov. 1.
They will be offered training on Sunday, June 10 involving information about the Wilderness Act, Leave No Trace principles, invasive species, dark sky monitoring and how to naturalize campsites that have appeared in areas where they should not be.
The ICL and Forest Service will provide maps, name tags, work gloves, a trash collection kit and a write-in-the-rain notebook.
Stewards will provide their own transportation to and from trailheads, personal gear, first aid kit, camera or cell phone. They should have First Aid/CPR skills and knowledge of Leave No Trace principles. They can pick which areas they wish to visit.
Stewards must be 18 or older, although family groups have included boys and girls who are younger than 18.
Last year 25 steward groups went on 102 patrols in the Sawtooth, Boulder, White Cloud and Jerry Peak wilderness areas., tabulating 829 hours all told.
They encountered 660 day hikers, 750 backpackers and 19 riders during that time. And they encountered 37 horses and mules, 12 llamas, 244 dogs, 17 motorcycle riders and 19 bikers—two of them illegal.
They packed out 45 pounds of litter, destroyed 30 fire rings returning the area to its natural state and cleaned up 28 fire rings. One steward even extinguished a fire at one abandoned campfire.
“It was incredible to travel up to places like Goat Lake and see that it was not littered with fire rings and trash,” noted one wilderness ranger.
For information, call Betsy Mizella at the Idaho Conservation League at 208-726-7485 or at bmizell@idahoconservation.org.