19. June 2019 · Comments Off on Owyhee Canyonlands BLM Management Plan Comment Period · Categories: Current Events, Public Lands

Send A Comment to the BLM

Dive deeper

This process is a key opportunity to help protect habitat of the imperiled sage grouse, determine where Off-Road Vehicles can and cannot travel, and protect wild desert places to camp, hike and bird. You can help shape how these lands will be managed for decades to come. Three main issues will be addressed in this planning process: Lands with Wilderness Characteristics, Off-Road Vehicle and Travel Management and Livestock Grazing. Take a deeper dive on these issues with these useful resources from Owyhee Coalition partner, Oregon Natural Desert Association:

Other ways to make your voice heard

The comment period is open until August 28, 2019. Right now is a critical window of time to make your voice heard and ensure the BLM knows there is widespread support for strong, conservation-focused management in this landscape.

  • Attend a public meeting hosted by the BLM in Ontario, McDermitt or Jordan Valley
  • Attend a comment writing session in Portland, Bend, Ontario or Boise. Event details coming soon.
18. June 2019 · Comments Off on Trail Ride Checklist – Trail Meister · Categories: Around The Campfire, Horse Camping

trail rider checklist

17. June 2019 · Comments Off on National Trails Day – 2019 · Categories: Public Lands

12. June 2019 · Comments Off on Twenty-Mile Creek Project · Categories: Public Lands, Work Parties and Projects

Join Alice, Phil and Rob on a one day project near Upper Payette Lake.

10. June 2019 · Comments Off on June 2019 – Northwest Horse Source · Categories: Around The Campfire

Click on the picture to view on-line.

10. June 2019 · Comments Off on Wound Treatment – Madison Seamans DMV · Categories: Around The Campfire, Education

On Sunday May 26, Sweet had a thunderstorm.  This storm dumped a lot of water which made the volcanic clay in my pasture slick. The thunder got my little herd of horses zooming around said pasture and my mustang Payette lost his footing and slid into a New Zealand high tension fence, breaking off three fiberglass poles and getting himself tangled up it in.  In the process of getting loose he cut his right hind leg.

I gave Madison a call on what should have been a day off and he happened to be in Emmett and agreed to stop by. We cleaned up the wound and attempted to put some stitches in, but the skin was mostly scar tissue from a previous accident and would not hold.  The plan was to change the wrap every three day and after two weeks shift to an open air wound dressing if he was healing up with out complication or infection. This picture is after 7 days and looks pretty good This next picture is after two weeks, and at first glance looks worse than at one week, but what you see is new healthy tissue. At this point we stopped covering it and switched to Madison’s favorite wound dressing for this type of injury. You buy a 22 oz container of RAW honey and mix in two table spoon of powdered Alum. Once a day you slather the honey mixture over the wound. The honey protects the wound from infection and promotes healthy tissue and hair growth. I will update this post after four weeks to show the results.  By the way, Payette is moving like he had never gotten tangled in that fence.  I expect him to be ready to go to work the the second weekend in July.

06/27/2019 – 30 days after he was hurt, two weeks of the honey treatment. No proud flesh, healing nicely

07. June 2019 · Comments Off on BCHA – Exclusive Leader Newsletter – May 2019 · Categories: BCHI /BCHA


Building the Future

BCHA_Executive_Committee_Meeting_Minutes

2019-05-29_BCHA_Presidents_Call

06. June 2019 · Comments Off on SBFC – Wilderness Ranger Intern Orientation/Training · Categories: Around The Campfire

Trainees and instructors discussing Visitor Use/Campsite Monitoring during the Northern Rockies Wilderness Skills Institute 📷Verena Gruber

Henry Vaughan – Wilderness Ranger Intern

The College of Idaho

Orientation/Training

May 13 – May 27

Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest

Our first two weeks as Wilderness Ranger Interns has had us housed and training at Powell Ranger Station in the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest. Each day, we dip our toes, feet, ankles, knees, bit by bit into wilderness until we are totally submerged: acclimated as much as possible for our fast approaching hitches. We went from staying in beds and bunkhouses during the first week—where we could avoid the worst weather at night by turning up the heaters in our rooms and closing the blinds—to sleeping in our own tents and bags during the second. Before long, we’ll be spending our nights in the wilderness with the only comforts available to us being those which we can carry in on our backs.

We’re developing important skills for working in the wilderness this summer: becoming familiar with our primitive tools, testing out our gear, learning how to navigate in a land without Google Maps; but I’m also recognizing an important new way to perceive nature. Around Powell (particularly outside of the bunkhouses), nature gets up in our face. Deer wander daily between the buildings. One intern encountered a wolf on an early morning trail run. Oyster and morel mushrooms regularly provide a free dinner to those with watchful eyes. These natural displays: such abundances of vitality, fecundity, and productivity from the trees to the insects to the uninhibited Lochsa River flowing right by our tents show a land community with greater agency—where it is difficult to keep humanity and civilization at the forefront of the mind. Closer to wilderness, nature has more room to breathe and speak and (aided greatly by a lack of cell phone service) we are forced to become a listener. And, though we have little say in it, I have yet to meet anyone at the ranger station who isn’t made happier by that prospect.

The closest wilderness area to us (the Selway-Bitterroot) is a hundred feet away—right across the river. In between the banks of the Lochsa, as a sort of gateway between a developed Powell and an undeveloped wilderness, is a small island where the Lewis and Clark party is said to have camped as they made their way over the Bitterroot Mountains. On the far bank is the beginning of a land which can make a visitor feel as if they are stepping back even further in time to before the first American presences. The wilderness areas, where signs of civilization are intentionally minimized, are spaces where nature is most free to speak and where humanity, when present, is most likely to hear a clear and individually unique message. I, for one, am excited to see what this particular wilderness has to share with me.

02. June 2019 · Comments Off on 2019 National Trail Day – Peace Creek · Categories: Public Lands, Work Parties and Projects

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