Wilderness Campaigns

Restoring the Sierra: Seeing the forest for the trees

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 23:05:58 +0000

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For the vast Sierra Nevada, it’s more important than ever to see the forest for the trees.

And in one area of the Sierra National Forest that bigger picture includes preserving forest health, safeguarding communities from wildfire, improving wildlife habitat and creating local jobs.

All of those goals are part of a unique forest restoration project underway in the Dinkey area of the Sierra National Forest - a popular recreation destination just east of Fresno. It is hoped that the lessons learned here can serve as a blueprint to improve the health of other forests.

The science-based program, known as the Dinkey Collaborative Restoration Project, is focused on 154,000 acres of forests, meadows, lakes, rivers and chaparral.

The Wilderness Society is one of the project’s many diverse partners, which also includes a lumber mill, a utility company, a regional air pollution agency, California Native American tribes, local fire safe councils, the U.S. Forest Service, nonprofit organizations and several universities.

By working together, these partners are focused on the Dinkey’s dense stands of trees that threaten the health of the forest and its residents – both animal and human.

In a healthier forest ecosystem, a variety of trees co-exist in a landscape where periodic fire helps to naturally thin out the density. Instead, many areas of the Dinkey are currently packed with too many small trees that are elbowing out other species.

“Our goal is to retain and promote large tree and denning/nesting structures needed by the Pacific fisher and the California spotted owl and provide sufficient natural regeneration of shade-intolerant tree species for the creation of future fire-adapted forests” explains Stan Van Velsor, a California Wilderness Society forest expert who has been working on the Dinkey collaborative for two years.

When fire whips through these crowded stands of smaller trees, the fire grows more intense, with flames traveling upwards through the trees - even destroying species like Ponderosa pines which can typically survive smaller fires. The fire then becomes a devastating ‘crown fire’ where flames spread rapidly across the crowns of trees and threatens communities and rare species like the Pacific fisher, a shy, furry mammal that is becoming rare in old growth forests of the Sierra Nevada.

So far, the Dinkey project has hired local crews to help thin trees on nearly 5,000 acres, much of this near communities with high forest fire danger. This year, several other projects are in the works: reintroducing fire on approximately 2,000 acres through prescribed burning, thinning another 2,500 acres of forest and undertaking several watershed improvement projects like erosion control.

Re-introducing low and moderate intensity fire, Van Velsor explains, is also an important part of the Dinkey project and eventually controlled burns will be used on approximately 46,000 acres.

The Dinkey project, Van Velsor says, restores forest health and will help campers, boaters and fishermen to continue to enjoy this area. Local forest crews employ community residents. And rare species like the Pacific fisher will have better luck finding the black oak where they make their homes.

If forests grow unchecked with no small fires or thinning, smaller species like white fir and incense cedar will crowd out black oak and other tree species. “A multi-species forest is more resilient, more fire tolerant and healthier in the long term,” Van Velsor says.

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Tennessee Wilderness Act with Wilderness Trail Work

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 20:15:22 +0000

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I am swinging a pulaski deep into the ground, hoping to chip off a nice large chunk of soil. I am on Sampson Mountain on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Tennessee Wilderness Act of 1986, doing trail maintenance in this magnificent wilderness. It is a gorgeous October day and I am working together with six volunteers, all of us swinging pulaskis and hoes, eager to repair the tread on this trail so that others can venture up here and enjoy the stunning view.

The Tennessee Wilderness Act of 1986 designated five areas in the Cherokee National Forest as wilderness, including the spot I am standing on, and I cannot think of anything I would rather be doing right now than working on this mountain side with a group of strangers who are as passionate about wilderness as I am, and as willing to spend a Saturday maintaining a trail.

This trail is rarely used because it has not been maintained for a period of time and erosion has obscured or entirely eliminated the trail at certain stretches. What a shame, since the views from up here are spectacular! During the summer, a trail maintenance crew with the Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards worked on an earlier part of the trail that had been blocked by fallen trees after a tornado ripped through the area. With crosscut saws, the sawyers removed the massive logs, cleared the debris, and once again made it passable. We are following up on their work by digging a wider tread, so that the trail will be visible and passage will be safe during all seasons.

Digging trail is hard work, but it is also fun, and through the sweat and toil, we are talking, laughing, and making sure that everyone stays hydrated. The camaraderie is almost instant when you hike two steep miles up a mountain with heavy tools in order to dig trail tread for several hours.

We get a good stretch of the trail done, and our crew leader is impressed with the progress that we have made. While there is still much work to do to get this trail restoration completed (by future volunteer trail crews), the six of us feel pretty good about our contribution to restoring this trail to a top condition for the hikers that will follow.

As we decend through the stunning fall foliage of the hardwoods and the beautiful gorges filled with rhododendron, I am grateful that this landscape is protected, and that its beauty, solitude and uniqueness will be enjoyed by hikers for generations to come. As for me, I feel rejuvenated and relaxed. I will soon be back in the smog of Washington, D.C., but for now I am breathing fresh air and taking in the amazing nature that surrounds me, already planning my next trip to the Tennessee wilderness. Maybe next time I come down, I will get to visit a brand new wilderness in the state, one of the 19,556 acres of land that would be designated as wilderness if the Tennessee Wilderness Act of 2011 passes in Congress.

See you on a Tennessee wilderness trail!
Anna

To find out how you can volunteer with a trail maintenance crew in the wilderness of Tennessee, contact Bill Hodge of the Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS) at billhodge@trailcrews.org or 865-617-4804.

A Subtle Kind of Wilderness

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 06:00:00 +0000

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Last Saturday I was able to join 30 enthusiastic hikers to explore a kind of wilderness that is different than what we often think of as "wilderness" – the subtle, enigmatic hills and valleys of the Adobe Badlands. The Adobe Badlands are unique in many ways, a maze of soft yellow shale that supports extremely rare plants and creatures that survive the harsh conditions in this starkly arid landscape.

Adobe Badlands is also a Wilderness Study Area quite close to the western Colorado town of Delta. The area’s proximity to a population center makes it both highly valuable for nearby quiet solitude. It also means this area is vulnerable to human impacts of dumping and unauthorized motorized use. Primitive hiking opportunities include a trek to the geologic formation aptly named “Devil’s Thumb.”

Formed from Mancos Shale deposited in an ancient inland sea, the Adobe Hills are hotspots for globally rare plants. The clay-loving wild buckwheat is an Adobes plant found only in two counties in the world. Sensitive wildlife including burrowing owls, pronghorn, white-tailed prairie dog and kit fox inhabit this mysterious ecosystem.

Saturday’s educational hike featured intriguing desert plants like the desert trumpet, and the federally threatened Colorado hookless cactus. As the Dolores River Basin Wildlands Coordinator I led a chat with the hikers about many of these plants. They also heard from Andrea Robinsong from the Western Colorado Congress and additional hike participants with expertise in geology and biology.

The Bureau of Land Management will consider management of the larger Adobe Badlands landscape in their Resource Management Plan due to be published in draft form in late 2012. In addition to the Wilderness Study Area, several Areas of Critical Environmental Concern have been proposed to protect environmental resources. Public comment will be important to encourage preservation of the special and unique values found in the Adobe Badlands.

Photos:
Desert Trumpet. Photo by Barbara Hawke.
Schlerocactus glaucus in Badlands. Photo by Barbara Hawke.

Longing for the call of the Whippoorwill: A reflection

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:35:53 +0000

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Autumn on the horizon, there is a coolness in the night air and the days are getting shorter. I am sitting on my front porch recalling the first time I used a crosscut saw last summer. That’s when I first met The Wilderness Society’s Bill Hodge and when I cut my first tree – an experience that prompted me to spend nine weeks with the Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards (SAWS) as a crew leader.

Something has been missing from my life since the program ended and I couldn’t put my finger on it until now as I listen to the sound of silence.

My mind wanders back to my time in the woods. Week number three, we visited the Flatside Wilderness Area in Arkansas and cleared dozens of trees on a part of the Ouachita National Recreation Trail. We headed to Tennessee after that to work in the Citico Creek Wilderness for a trail restoration project on the Crowder Branch Trail. Here on the first night at sunset we were welcomed by a Whippoorwill calling to its mate somewhere out in the wilderness. We next went to the Big Frog Wilderness doing another trail restoration project on the Grassy Gap Trail. Again we were welcomed by a lone Whippoorwill.

The Shining Rock Wilderness in North Carolina was next on the agenda. We did general trail maintenance and worked on drainage issues. We weren’t welcomed by a Whippoorwill this time but we were given a spectacular week of sunsets. Week number seven, we were off to Georgia to the Brasstown Bald Wilderness for more trail maintenance and some rock work (building steps). Here also the lone cry of a Whippoorwill sang to us at sunset.

Week number eight took us back to North Carolina to work on a trail reroute on the Hawksbill trail in the Linville Gorge Wilderness. Yep, you guessed there was a Whippoorwill there, too. This was also the last week that my SAWS Team 6 worked together. We headed back to Tennessee the following week. That’s pretty much my back yard. We hit the Sampson Mountain Wilderness for storm damage and some trail work.

Bill repeatedly asked me over the past month to name my favorite place. It was hard for me to answer until now. Each and every Wilderness Area we worked in holds a special place in my memories: the spectacular views at Hawksbill, the sunsets at Ivestor Gap, the incredible downpour on the Crowder Branch Trail, the black bear on the Arkaquah Trail, meeting Wildland Fire Fighting crew from Iowa, a haunted girl scout camp, and all the volunteers and trail techs doing the work they do. I have to say, though, that the Sampson Mountain Wilderness is my favorite place of all.

As I sit here writing this, I know those experiences have redefined me as a person. I now look at the world through a different set of ideals and eyes. For most of my 42 years, I lived life with a love of the outdoors but was firmly planted in civilization. Now I have a passion for those areas “untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor and does not remain” (Wilderness Act of 1964) … those areas where “solitude” and the call of the Whippoorwill go hand in hand. And it is that solitude and that call that I long for.

About the Author: Scotty Bowman, a native of Tennessee and junior at East Tennessee State University, spent this summer as a crew leader for The Wilderness Society sponsored SAWS program. Scotty spent 13 years as a chef before returning to school to study Natural Resource Management.