Taking care of these special wild places
I often get asked how exactly our small statewide team, Wyoming Wilderness Association, upholds our mission of protecting Wyoming’s public wildlands. And often over a cup of coffee, I get the chance to go into great detail about all the programs, events and ways that we advocate during land management planning processes. But one of the other ways that protecting our wild country is actually carried out is through you, our volunteers.
WWA has partnered with Sheridan’s local, state and federal agencies and partnering organizations for the last decade recruiting our members, local youth and the greater community to volunteer on projects that preserve our public lands’ resources. Past projects have included: fence removal, TRAC (trail) surveys, cave graffiti removal, trail restoration and clean-ups. But this summer, we have also added a Wilderness Stewardship Performance Project: carrying out Wilderness Rapid Campsite Assessments in the Cloud Peak Wilderness is the project focus on the Bighorns. This is an exciting expansion of the solitude monitoring pilot program we ran last summer in the Gros Ventre Wilderness on the Bridger-Teton National Forest.