Backcountry Musings

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As the Department of the Interior develops a plan to “restore American prosperity” by exploiting Western natural resources, a Wyoming attorney who has steeled rural communities against federal policies is atop the hierarchy that will marshal the effort.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum last month appointed Karen Budd-Falen as temporary deputy secretary and his senior advisor. As the department fleshes out a four-year strategic plan to use natural resources across 19.9 million acres of national parks and Bureau of Land Management property in Wyoming, Budd-Falen will be in the Interior’s second-highest position.

A draft of the four-year Interior plan leaked to Public Domain outlines department objectives for prosperity, security and recreation. Conservationists have decried elements they say would dismantle environmental safeguards, turn over federal property, promote energy development and favor rural communities over nationwide interests.
The Interior Department last week blasted the leak and called its publication “irresponsible.”

“It is beyond unacceptable that an internal document in the draft/deliberative process is being shared with the media before a decision point has been made,” Interior’s press office wrote WyoFile on Thursday. “Not only is this unacceptable behavior, it is irresponsible for a media outlet to publish a draft document.

“We will take this leak of an internal, pre-decisional document very seriously and find out who is responsible,” the statement reads.

The draft plan, which the agency said is “not final nor ready for release,” sets four goals and several objectives to accomplish them. Interior’s drafted goals are to restore American prosperity, ensure national security through infrastructure and innovation, and allow sustainable enjoyment of natural resources. It would do all that through the fourth goal — collaboration with states, tribes and local governments.
The draft plan to restore American prosperity would use American energy to “lower… costs and increases affordability.” But it includes elements that worry conservationists who fear damage to Interior agencies including the National Park Service, BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The plan would “deregulate” to increase “clean coal” production and oil and gas drilling. It would streamline the National Environmental Policy Act, a law designed to safeguard the environment. And it would reduce the cost of grazing, which critics say is already too low.

The draft would “release federal holdings” — divest Americans of their public property — to allow states and communities to reduce housing costs. Interior would support agriculture and increase revenues from logging, non-energy mining, and grazing. The draft treats natural resources as assets, viewing federal holdings for the economic value that can be derived from them.

The leaked document “reads like an industry wish list,” the Center for Western Priorities said in a statement. It includes “a thinly veiled reference to the seizure and sale of public lands,” according to the conservation group.

The draft treats the West’s natural resources “as nothing more than numbers on a balance sheet,” Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala said in a statement. In the plan, those resources are “products to be sold off and exploited to help pay for tax cuts for Elon Musk and Trump’s fellow billionaires,” she said.

“It resembles a business plan from a desperate CEO, not a framework to steward public lands for the benefit of all Americans,” Rokala’s statement reads.

To her post, Budd-Falen brings years of experience fighting for ranchers and other public land users and developers. The federal government has been a frequent adversary, but so has Western Watersheds Project, another conservation group that focuses on public land grazing.

She represented a group of ranchers who sued Western Watersheds for trespassing when a field worker collected water to test for pollution caused by grazing. She advised rural counties to adopt land use plans they could leverage when contesting federal programs on public land in their areas. She also represented stock growers who sided against four Missouri hunters who corner crossed to hunt public land on Elk Mountain in Carbon County. She represented the Cliven Bundy family and others as they fought grazing reductions imposed after Las Vegas developers were permitted to occupy desert tortoise habitat. That family later became infamous for armed standoffs with federal officials over use of public land.

Interior_Department_Draft_Strategic_Plan_Via_Public_Domain

PDF: _PUG+2024+ANNUAL+REPORT+(16)-compressed

Watch Video

I invite you to watch my second video (or read the transcript below), where I talk about our agency priorities and my focus areas as Chief. I continue to believe that safety must be our highest priority, no matter where you work. We must be safe in the course of our duties, and we must look out for one another.

I also share a bit more about what I mean when I say we need to get back to basics. Everyone, including the public, knows that we fight fires, but we do so much more, from forest management to outdoor recreation to mineral and energy management. By focusing on the fundamentals of our work, we can do more to support the health and vitality of our forests and grasslands and neighboring communities.

Overall, our work is built upon relationships and communication, from those with one another to our partners, and I look forward to communicating with all of you through these videos and as we meet in person.

TRANSCRIPT

When I came in, people were asking, “What are the priorities? What are we focused on?” I looked at a couple different things. One, first and foremost, was safety.

And as we prepare for fire season or when, regardless of whether you’re a firefighter, but just doing your job day to day can be hard. And so to me, first and foremost, as we do our jobs, it’s got to be safe, how we perform them and looking out for each other. Another big focus for me is trying to get back to basics. To me, like, really focusing on what our primary responsibilities and duties are that we do.

We’re fighting fire. We have a forest management program. We have a recreation, outdoor recreation program, the minerals program, oil and gas.

But the recreation program, for me, is an area that I’ve learned a lot about that. We have over two hundred million users on an annual basis that recreate on national forest lands.

I mean, so that the interest in the use and how we’re viewed is so positive, I think when I’ve looked at some of the customer survey results, we have like seventy percent positivity in terms of like how people view us and how we interact with the public. So it’s significant, the work that we do, it’s critical, and how we deliver that to the public.

And, you know, one thing that I didn’t mention was the role of relationships, right, and partnerships. But whether it’s in fire, whether it’s in archaeology, whether it’s recreation, we have so many partners. I really think we are in the relationship business, and you all see that in how you do your jobs. Maintaining those relationships and spending the time to to get to know people, in and out of work, is critical, for us to do our jobs effectively.

A company owned by Texas billionaires Dan and Faris Wilks is selling 73 ranch sites carved from about 2,000 acres south of Cascade.

Plans for Legacy Creek Ranch, as dubbed by DF Development, look like subdivisions across Valley County, but are not subject to the same rules and review process because the ranch sites were created by a series of lot line adjustments and original parcel splits.

That, Valley County Planning and Zoning Administrator Cynda Herrick said, is the difference between selling raw land and being required to follow the county’s subdivision laws.

“I’ve been talking with (DF) and they understand that this isn’t the preferred method,” Herrick told Valley Lookout. “But it’s what they’re entitled to by law.”

The method used by DF enables Legacy Creek Ranch to avoid the county’s subdivision requirements, which include plans for drainage, irrigation, drinking water, septic systems, utilities, and streets. It also means that the company is not required to create a fire protection plan covering things like water supply, emergency access, and vegetation management.

The plan also avoids review by the Valley County Planning and Zoning Commission, as well as several state agencies, including the Idaho Transportation Department, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, and the Idaho Department of Water Resources.

How were the ranch sites created?
Most of the ranch sites have been created by lot line adjustments, which require administrative approval. County law allows landowners to adjust the boundaries of existing parcels into different shapes and sizes if no new parcels are created.

For Legacy Creek Ranch, that has enabled DF to reconfigure existing parcels to include road access along Clear Creek Road, also known as Forest Service Road 409.

The company was also able to create 18 new parcels by splitting parcels that have not been subdivided since Valley County’s subdivision regulations were adopted in 1970. Those parcels, known as “original parcels,” may be split one time without triggering a review.
“We allow original parcels to be split one time without going through a platting process,” Herrick said. “So they took their parcels and did their free splits.”

The result of the splits and reconfiguring is 73 parcels, which Herrick emphasized do not qualify as “lots” because they were not created through the subdivision process.

Marketing
Advertisements for Legacy Creek Ranch have shown up on billboards on State Street in Boise, in The Star-News, and on social media.

In The Star-News, McCall’s weekly newspaper, the ranch sites are advertised as “lots,” despite not coming with any of the certainties or amenities associated with true subdivision lots.

“This is not a subdivision, these are not lots,” Herrick said. “This is a marketing tactic.”

Unlike typical subdivision lots, the parcels DF advertised by DF do not include any utilities and are not guaranteed to be able to meet standards for septic systems and water wells.

Any buyer of the lots would be required to seek a building permit from the county and receive approval for construction plans. It is unclear if any of the lots have been sold so far.

Advertising paints Legacy Creek Ranch as “the perfect place to connect with the wilderness and start building your legacy.”

“Our early Phase-1 release at Legacy Creek Ranch ensures plenty of open space,” according to DF’s website. “Our lifestyle plan for the community is simple: build green, clean, and sustainable spaces filled with the natural wonders of mountain wildlife.”

DF Development representatives did not respond to requests for comment by Valley Lookout.

Other DF Developments     Horsethief Ridge        Red Ridge Village

The country’s national parks have never been more popular. Though visitation to the U.S. National Park System has been steadily increasing for many years, 2024 set a new record for annual visitors. A whopping 331.9 million visits were recorded in 2024 — the most people since record-keeping began in 1904, the National Park Service reported.

That marks a 2% increase over 2023, which saw 6.36 million fewer visits, and beats the previous record set in 2016. The National Park Service (NPS) celebrated its centennial that year, racking up 330 million visits.

In past years, the news would likely be greeted with celebration. This year, however, the visitation statistics arrive at a critical moment for the nation’s public lands. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have fired thousands of parks workers at both the NPS and the U.S. Forest Service. They’ve also delayed seasonal hires and instituted a spending freeze for both the NPS and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Those actions have led to widespread protests, and former parks officials have warned of serious consequences for an understaffed park system about to enter the busy summer.

“The National Park Service just reported the highest visitation in its history, as the administration conducts massive firings and threatens to close visitor centers and public safety facilities,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs for the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s a slap in the face to the hundreds of millions of people who explored our parks last year and want to keep going back.”

Closures, Reduced Services
Usage of the parks in 2024 trended upward by several different metrics. Overnight stays, both in NPS facilities and privately owned lodging, increased compared to 2023. Also, 28 individual parks set new records for visitation, and another 38 experienced visitation above the 10-year average in every month of the year.

And while national parks may receive the lion’s share of attention, they only represent 28% of park visits in 2024. The rest are spread among national recreation areas (16%), national memorials (12%), and other categories like national monuments and national seashores.

All of those are managed by the NPS, and every category has been impacted by Trump laying off 9% of the total workforce, according to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). Several parks have already announced closed facilities, as well as reduced hours and services.

As the summer approaches — when visitation to the country’s parks is at its highest — former parks officials like Don Neubacher worry how parks will fare when a skeleton crew of workers must manage millions of visitors.

“Overall, between the funding and staff cuts and this freeze it makes it almost catastrophic for parks,” Neubacher, a former superintendent at Yosemite National Park, told Gear Junkie last week. “A lot of these people want to do good for the American public, and it’s almost impossible for that to be accomplished in this context.”

‘Dismantling of the NPS’
The moves by the Trump administration have affected the entire federal government, but the moves against the agencies in charge of public lands represent the “dismantling of the National Park Service as we know it,” said the NPCA’s Brengel.

After the firings, spending freezes, and hiring delays, the NPS got even more bad news last week from the Trump administration, according to the NPCA. The White House is now calling for the cancellation of 34 building leases that house visitor centers, law enforcement offices, museums, and hubs for critical programs.

The 34 locations were part of a larger list of hundreds of federal properties the Trump administration is looking to give up or sell, The Washington Post reported.

That includes nine visitor centers and visitor contact stations. Examples include the Klondike Gold Rush Historical Site in downtown Seattle and the San Antonio Missions law enforcement facility.

“They’re attacking from every side,” Chandra Rosenthal, the director of the Rocky Mountain division of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told GearJunkie. “It’s just a crisis moment right now.”

Kathleen Sgamma is a longtime oil and gas industry advocate, often critical of the agency’s policies.

Longtime oil and gas industry advocate and vocal critic of federal oversight Kathleen Sgamma is President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an agency that oversees some 18.4 million surface acres and 42.9 million acres of mineral estate in Wyoming.

With management authorities that affect agriculture, wildlife habitat, recreation, oil and gas development, commercial-scale renewable energy and the world’s largest coal producing region in the Powder River Basin, the federal agency plays a pivotal role in Wyoming’s economy.

Sgamma is president of the Denver, Colorado-based Western Energy Alliance, a powerful oil and gas trade group that advocates for the industry’s access to public lands — like those managed by the agency she’s now slated to run. The group is often at odds with federal agencies, particularly the BLM, over federal rules and regulations. Sgamma and the Western Energy Alliance are well known throughout the West, and her nomination has garnered cheers from fossil fuel industry leaders and jeers from many in conservation.

Gov. Mark Gordon described Trump’s nomination of Sgamma as “an excellent choice…to lead the Bureau of Land Management.

“As someone who has worked with Ms. Sgamma,” Gordon continued in a prepared statement, “I know she is well-qualified and knowledgeable when it comes to Wyoming, the West, and multiple use of public lands.”

Public lands advocacy group Center for Western Priorities, however, regards the nomination as “inappropriate” and “a direct threat to Western communities and wildlife that depend on healthy landscapes, clean air, and clean water.”

Sgamma “has consistently misrepresented the industry’s impact on public lands, always putting oil and gas companies’ interests above those of all Americans,” Center for Western Priorities Policy Director Rachael Hamby said in a prepared statement. “This appointment will hand the keys to our public lands over to oil and gas companies.”

February Update

And now to update you all on the latest news on funding our trail work.  At this time, all of our cost share agreements with the US Forest Service have been put on pause while the new federal administration evaluates the federal budget.  We have been working using funding from several Challenge Cost Share Agreements that allow us to be paid by the US Forest Service to perform the trail work on their lands.  We have one ongoing agreement to replace about 130 trail signs that were damaged in the wild fires of 2022, and close to signing 2 more agreements to continue our volunteer trail work and to hire a hosted crew of 3 to replace 2 trail bridges in the Eagle Cap Wilderness this year.  All of that is on hold for now and we do not know if any of it will be approved.  Meanwhile, our Plan B is to apply for grants from non-federal organizations to tide us over until we have a better idea about how much support we will get from our federal partners.  Please cross your fingers for us that something in Washington, DC settles out soon!

Now about trainings!

• We will again offer  both a Crosscut Saw (May 16-18th) and a Chainsaw Training (May 30-June 1).  I will be sending out another email next week to our sawyers that need to recertify, but in the meantime if you know that you want to take one or both of these classes send me an email and I will get you on the list.  If you cannot attend these classes, our sister organization (Idaho Trails Association) will be presenting their saw training on May 9-11th in McCall.  Contact me if you want to attend that one.
• We will be offering the Basic First Aid/CPR training again locally in Enterprise with Joyce Himes, and I would like to sponsor a Backcountry First Aid class, as well.  This is a class that is intermediate between Basic and Wilderness First Aid.  There is an online component (2-6 hours) and an in person component (6 hours).  It is supported by the Oregon Trails Coalition.  Please let me know if you would like to attend either type of First Aid Training.
• I will be presenting our own training in Communication and Navigation, and also a training in Rope Rigging for Trail Work.  Again let me know if either of these is of interest.  Once I have a list of participants, I will find a date that works for the most people.
• Our stock handlers will be presenting a class in how to operate safely around pack animals and how to help the handlers prepare and load packs on the horses or mules.  This training will be in early May, possibly the 10th.  Stay tuned for a firm date, and let me know if you are interested in attending this training.

And lastly, our partners at the US Forest Service have asked us to help get the word out about their Volunteer Wilderness Ranger positions in the Lakes Basin of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.  If you or someone you know is interested in being a Volunteer Wilderness Ranger this summer here is the link to the application:

https://www.volunteer.gov/s/volunteer-opportunity/a09SJ000005bDEjYAM/volunteer-wilderness-ranger-eagle-cap-wilderness

Phew!  Guess I wasn’t so brief after all, but I hope this was at least interesting if not actually useful!  I look forward to seeing you all at the Annual Meeting and out on a trail this next summer!

Mike Hansen

Executive Director

Wallowa Mountains Hells Canyon Trails Association

541-398-8225

https://www.wmhcta.org/

Who: Doug Burgum

Nominated for: Secretary of the Interior

You might know him from: The 2024 Republican presidential primary. The former governor of North Dakota ran on his experience as a successful businessman before dropping out of the primary and becoming a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump, then the front-runner, landing on the VP shortlist.

More about Burgum:

• He sold his software company to Microsoft in 2001 for $1.1 billion.
• He is a big booster of oil and gas drilling.
• He pledged for North Dakota to be carbon neutral by 2030, largely through carbon capture and storage.
• Position: The Department of the Interior oversees public and federal lands and their natural resources, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

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  If confirmed as secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum would become a key player in implementing one of the Trump administration’s overarching goals: “Drill, baby, drill.”

  The Department of the Interior manages roughly one-fifth of the lands and waters of the United States, giving Burgum — the former governor of an oil-rich state — significant leverage to increase domestic oil and gas production, which is already at an all-time high. But the massive department also oversees national parks and monuments, endangered species protections and relations with federally recognized Native American tribes.

  During the first Trump administration, the Department of the Interior cut regulations to make it easier to drill on federal land, significantly weakened the power and scope of the Endangered Species Act and shrunk two national monuments. Deb Haaland, secretary of the Interior during the Biden administration, reversed many of these actions and focused on boosting conservation and renewable energy.

  Burgum is expected to reverse course again. Burgum’s pro-drilling stance is fairly well established, and as Trump’s proposed head of the newly proposed National Energy Council — a body that will oversee regulatory processes across government agencies — he’d have considerable power to push fossil fuel extraction.

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Montana state officials have already made a New Year’s resolution: Sue the federal government. In a lawsuit filed on Dec. 31, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte accused the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) of violating established agreements for managing bison.

Federal wildlife officials have ignored Montana’s concerns about increased numbers of bison, the lawsuit said, and also avoided vaccinating the animals against brucellosis, a disease that worries the state’s cattle-ranching industry.

It’s the latest escalation in a decades-long conflict between state and federal officials over management of bison herds in Yellowstone National Park. The core issue is about how to manage the animals when they leave park borders and roam into Montana. According to the lawsuit, the NPS changed the rules regarding bison numbers and vaccination in a 2024 environmental impact statement without consulting state officials.

The lawsuit was filed in district court by Gianforte’s office, the Montana Department of Livestock, and the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. The NPS didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

“The new Bison Management Plan is another example of Yellowstone National Park’s tendency to do what it wants, leaving Montana to collect the pieces,” the lawsuit said.
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Uncle Sam has a belated Christmas gift for anyone who loves visiting national parks.

After years of political wrangling between state and federal officials, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced Monday the purchase of 640 acres of additional land within Grand Teton National Park. Known as the Kelly Parcel, the “picturesque landscape” has mountain views and “world-class wildlife habitat,” federal officials said in a news release.

The parcel was the largest remaining piece of unprotected land within the national park’s boundaries. By adding the area to the park, wildlife managers can maintain “essential connectivity for wildlife in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem,” officials said. They called the zone one of the last remaining temperate ecosystems on the planet that’s mostly intact.

The $100 million sale to preserve the parcel was made possible through a partnership between the Interior Department and the National Park Service. They pooled money from the Grand Teton National Park Foundation ($37.6 million), the Land and Water Conservation Fund ($62.4 million), and the National Park Foundation. But private donations were a big part of the conservation victory as well. Nearly 400 donors from 46 states made gifts ranging from $10 million to $15 million.

“We are in awe of the incredible generosity of hundreds of people who stepped forward to protect this essential parcel,” Grand Teton National Park Foundation President Leslie Mattson said.

Utah is no longer asking the U.S. Supreme Court to order the United States to “dispose” of 18.5 million acres of public land in the Beehive State, its latest court pleading shows.

In an 18-page Dec. 4 filing, Utah says its original complaint does not seek a sell-off or ownership transfer of the federal property. That complaint to the Supreme Court in August asked justices to “[o]rder the United States to begin the process of disposing of its unappropriated federal lands within Utah” — 18.5 million acres of land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management.

Utah filed more papers Dec. 4 that appear to back off from that demand for divesture.

“Utah is not ‘ask[ing] this Court to exercise … the power to dispose of public lands,’” Utah’s latest filing states. “Nor does Utah seek an order ‘direct[ing] Congress to enact new statutes,’” requiring the United States to shed its holdings, Utah’s latest document reads.

Instead, Utah’s lawyers contend, the state only wants the justices to declare unconstitutional the United States’ ownership of the property managed by the BLM. What the federal government should do after that, Utah’s latest filing doesn’t say.

The difference between the two filings marks a “seismic change” in Utah’s position, said Ryan Semerad, a Casper attorney practiced in public land issues. He has analyzed the Utah complaint in a 40-page paper submitted for publication to the Wyoming Law Review. He also successfully represented four hunters in an ongoing public access corner-crossing case in Carbon County.

Compared to Utah’s initial complaint, the latest filing is “a much softer request … a much weaker ask than the headlines have made out,” Semerad wrote in an email. “In the end, Utah just wants the Court to tell Congress that it must give the Secretary of the Interior more leeway to sell off or transfer lands, eventually.”   READ MORE

by ERIC WELCH
Staff Writer | December 13, 2024 1:00 AM

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Wyoming is backing an effort by Utah to wrest ownership of U.S. Bureau of Land Management land from the federal government, arguing that states could “develop the land to attract prospective citizens.”

In an amicus brief filed Tuesday, Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska and the Arizona Legislature expressed support for Utah’s quest to take its case straight to the U.S. Supreme Court. Utah wants to own BLM land that’s currently the property of all Americans, saying among other things that the federal holdings deprive the Beehive State of an equal footing with other states.

Gov. Mark Gordon announced the Wyoming plea this week. Wyoming’s U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman lent her name to a separate amicus brief supporting Utah, teaming with U.S. Sens. Mitt Romney, Mike Lee and other Western members of Congress.

Twenty-six Wyoming legislators also asked Tuesday to join the action if the Supreme Court agrees to take up the issue. Those 10 state senators and 16 representatives (see list below) say they might not stop after gaining state ownership of BLM’s property which is largely sagebrush and desert prairie steppe.

Wyoming legislators’ could extend their claims to “all former federal territorial lands … now held by the United States … [including] parks, monuments, wilderness, etc.,” their brief states.

The federal government has until Nov. 21 to respond to what conservationists call a “land grab.”

“This lawsuit is as frivolous as they come and a blatant power-grab by a handful of Utah politicians whose escalating aggression has become an attack on all public lands as we know them,” Jocelyn Torres, an officer with the Conservation Lands Foundation, a Colorado nonprofit, said in a statement.

Unappropriated

Utah and its allies argue that BLM lands are “unappropriated” and should be the property of Western States. Because of the federal government’s “indefinite retention” of 18.5 million BLM acres, “Utah is deprived of basic and fundamental sovereign powers as to more than a third of its territory,” its bill of complaint states.

Sagebrush rebellion efforts like Utah’s legal gambit have popped up — and fallen short — repeatedly since the movement arose in the 1970s. They’ve been countered in part by western states ceding — in their constitutions at statehood — ownership of federal property to the government and all Americans.

“The people inhabiting this state do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof,” the Wyoming Constitution states. Further, Western states received federal property at statehood — two square miles in many surveyed 36-square-mile townships in Wyoming — to support schools and other institutions.

“Only Congress can transfer or dispose of federal lands,” the Lands Foundation said.

Gov. Gordon sees it differently.

“Wyoming believes it is essential for the states to be recognized as the primary authority when it comes to unappropriated lands within our borders,” he said in a statement Thursday.

The BLM manages 28% of the land in Wyoming, the brief states, most of it “unappropriated.”

Leaving vexing legal complexities to Utah, Wyoming’s brief focuses on “harms that federal ownership of unappropriated lands uniquely imposes on western States on a daily basis,” the amicus filing states. “In short, western States’ sovereign authority to address issues of local concern is curtailed, and billions of dollars are diverted away from western States.”

A ruling in favor of Utah would “begin to level the playing field … and restore the proper balance of federalism between western States and the federal government,” the brief states.

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The Forest Service is cutting its seasonal workforce and public lands will suffer

Patti has been working with ITA since the very first project in 2010, first as a Forest Service trail leader and then as a volunteer crew leader. She has also helped as a crew leader teacher at our CLEM (Crew Leader Education and Mentoring) Training. Her long history working on trails and with crews (30 years!) in the Forest Service is a huge asset to ITA and we so appreciate her commitment to sharing her skills and experience by training leaders and volunteers! Thank you for all you do for Idaho’s trails, Patti!  READ FULL STORY

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