 The Wilderness Preservation System was enacted on September 3, 1964. Let's hear why the Wilderness Act came to be. I have to say that I am very proud of our Wilderness tradition in this country because Wilderness originated as an American ideal. As the Europeans started to settle, the United States, the quote, Wilderness, was disappearing. It was being cleared for fields and forage and railroads were being built and forests were being logged. One of the first things that happened as this American landscape was changing was some real visionaries started to see that there were some places worthy of preservation and one of the very first places that came to their attention was Yellowstone National Park where it had all its geothermal wonders and wildlife wonders and so George Catlin, who was an early American artist, stepped forward to really voice the importance of preserving it and started to voice the importance of the idea of a national park system and people like John Muir were joining with him and bringing Yosemite forward as another place that was worthy of preservation and so the national park system was established. But that didn't do the whole job. Still areas were being developed and even in the national parks roads were being put in, lodges were being built, tourism was being drawn in and promoted and so again there were visionaries that stepped forward to say well we really need some places that are roadless and undeveloped and left in their primeval condition. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose there is hereby established a national wilderness preservation system. So the intent of wilderness is basically in the words of the act to preserve a place for present and future generations where man is a visitor who does not remain, where it's non-motorized where you can escape the sights and sounds of humankind. So it's being preserved both for naturalness and for ecosystems to play out their free processes. No two wildernesses are the same. Each landscape is unique. The landscape of wilderness in the United States is incredibly diverse and that was by design. Our Ranger District has an amazing climatic gradient over 50 miles. We start up on the Cascade Crest where we have over 100 inches of annual precipitation and it's a very lush subalpine environment. And then you keep transitioning into what we call the dry forest which is Grand Fur, Douglas Fur and Ponderosa Pine. And as you look across the rest of the landscape in the United States there's grasslands, many different desert ecosystems. You have everything from high desert where you'd expect pinion and juniper, sagebrush, rabbit brush to low desert where you have saguaro cactuses. There's wilderness in almost every state so you would expect swamps in Louisiana and the hardwood forests of Northern New England and the Great Lakes states. There's wilderness in Florida. And then of course you go to Alaska where you have tundra landscapes and wilderness and the Black Spruce Forest. There's four federal land managing agencies and all of four of those agencies have wilderness. So there's the United States Forest Service and that was the original agency. And quickly joining the Forest Service is the National Park Service. Then we also have the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. So each agency as it struggles to conceptualize how to manage wilderness has a little bit different spin on it because we all have a slightly different mission and that affects how we manage wilderness. Most wilderness areas will have a set of regulations that go along with that area that specifically define exactly what the requirements are for visitors in that area. There are often special orders and the special orders will identify maybe what the group size limit is. If there are particular locations where camping is prohibited or restricted there can be a whole variety of different particular requirements for that area. For work I've traveled on foot backpacking. I've traveled with stock maybe just with one or two animals or with a full string. I've traveled by sea kayak for work as well and then in aircraft as well in places where it's appropriate in wilderness. Float planes that are landing on lakes different ways of moving through the landscape and it really varies from place to place. Rangers are passionate about preserving wilderness. Let's listen to why their jobs mean so much to them. My greatest satisfaction working in this job is knowing that I'm preserving something for future generations and hopefully make it better and make it last. It's being out here. It's contributing some way to this place so it's been nice to have some way to give something back to the area. Some of the perks being a wilderness ranger is obviously being in some of the most beautiful country in the world. I enjoy these high alpine lakes and mountains and then obviously this time of year in the fall the berries come up and we get to enjoy that and I just enjoy being by myself a lot too. It gives me time to think about things and every trip that I come out I feel a little bit fresher about life. It is the time for a moment to be very simple. You get up when the sun gets up you go to bed when the sun goes down and getting back into that rhythm that ties directly to the land and the rhythms of the day you have a chance to immerse yourself in a whole summer of going in when there's snow still on the ground and watching spring come watching summer unfold and all of the flowers and wildlife and then transitioning to the pastel colors and the changing light of the fall and then back to the first snowstorms and seeing that change over the seasons is an incredible privilege. Like forest rangers of the past a wilderness ranger of today is a jack of all trades. Let's learn about the wide assortment of skills you'll need to do your job. I always think of it as two main groups of skills. You've got the physical carrying the backpack, cutting the log digging the water bar carrying the rocks all those big physical type of skills and then the social skills like helping someone who needs first aid contacting a visitor educating about leave no trace but the perfect balance I mean that's what makes a good ranger is having strong in both of those. You have to have so many different skills and the skills might be life or death skills. Here you're probably going to need snow travel you might need some climbing skills or maybe you can do your job with just the hiking skills and horse skills. I think wilderness skills the first thing that comes to my mind is just the type of tools and methods we're using cross cut saws and hand tools for example navigation is another big one and it's just you have to realize you have to really be able to read maps and use a compass and be able to navigate. Understanding research methods and methodology for a lot of the work that we do because we do a lot of monitoring and data collection other skills that I'm starting to see are law enforcement training, grant writing community outreach You win your NRP I've always been pretty involved in doing education programs and doing community outreach and being a resource for people in the community doing the best you can to get out into the schools and out to fairs and other special events that go on in the community You're an educator and if the education isn't working you're the enforcer and you're basically a glorified wilderness janitor of cleaning up after people and occasionally you're going to be a restorationist trying to restore damaged campsites or trails and we do monitoring, campsite monitoring so there's this whole variety of things they might be doing Your involvement in fire depends on the wilderness you're in and how much fire is a part of that ecosystem So when I am hiring rangers I do let them know that they are expected to participate as wilderness resource advisors if we have a fire As a wilderness ranger your main fire responsibilities would be to watch the weather look for any smoke after a lightning storm comes through and primarily would be to educate the public whether there's current fire and people need to start changing their route plans that are within the wilderness or if it's elevated fire danger you need to start contacting visitors to put out campfires to limit their cooking to certain areas Typically most wilderness rangers at a minimum will want to have a wilderness first aid certification and then in addition to that you can escalate to a wilderness first responder become a wilderness EMT there are even trained medics that work as wilderness rangers in some locations How do you decide what gets done when there's so much to do? Here's some advice When I think back about first becoming a wilderness ranger the hardest part of it to me was not carrying the weight it was not being alone not being dirty or remote it was how to decide how much time do I spend working doing trail work how much time do I spend contacting visitors how do I make those choices You do the best you can come back and talk to your supervisor about it Usually the day that you have planned never goes how you had it planned and they're running into downed trees or a law enforcement situation or a lost horse there's always something that kind of derails where you thought you were headed and you end up spending more hours in your day to accomplish what you thought you were going to get done just because there's a lot of additions that are added throughout the day Rangers have worked with stocks since the inception of the Forest Service some still get the chance today Well the horses are they're a great part of my job I grew up with horses and really they are my crew The reason for having these guys is that they help you pack a lot of weight that you couldn't carry yourself so using a minimum tool concept we don't take them out every time we go we only take them out when we need them and I do find that on busier sections of trail when I have the stock I will walk in front of them a lot so that I can have a one-on-one contact with people on the ground so that you're not talking down to your visitors as you pass If I'm walking up the trail with a backpack and I see a stock train coming my way I would step to the downhill side get off the trail far enough where you're not going to pose a threat to the horse where it's not going to see you as an odd animal with a big back and it's not going to get spooked and move slowly don't be loud The llamas are great because they can go anywhere they can go on narrow gauge trails they can go over rocky slopes they can go off trail and they just don't create the same impacts they don't have the same weight they don't have the same food requirements as the regular stock and I do a lot of education when I'm on the trail both to people on foot and stock users or pack streams about the llamas Probably one of the biggest challenges that we have is safely using stock properly and being able to take care of them you can get hurt awful easily you can cause a lot of damage very quickly I've worked with a lot of animals and have had a lot of teachers and I still consider myself a novice so that's probably one of the bigger challenges working with the animals but it's pretty fun too As a wilderness ranger a key part of your job will be to meet visitors We get all kinds of people depends on what areas we're hiking in we get a lot of day use on some of our trails that have a destination say within 6 miles then we get backpacking use the typical backpackers of varying skill levels we have several off trail routes a lot of climbing in our wilderness both rock and alpine we do get stock use we get a hunting crowd during hunting season we have a lot of alpine lakes in certain areas it's amazing where those folks will go for the opportunity to catch some trout rafting and kayaking river sports in general technology is changing and a lot more people are out on the water and there's a lot more opportunities for ordinary people to get out and float the river there's a lot more opportunities out here if it's one or two people day hiking if they don't want to talk to you say how you doing have a nice day and move on if you see people with overnight packs it's worth finding out where they're heading making sure they understand the rules and regulations it may apply and then making sure they've at least heard or understand some portion of the principles of leave no trace a wilderness ranger can't be a hermit and they need to know how to have a conversation have the skills or the ability to talk with the kind of user that they're visiting with be able to talk to a backpacker from that frame of mind be able to talk to a stock user be able to talk to a commercial outfitter be able to talk to a floater and talk to them on their level you have to develop this confidence and feel comfortable going up and approaching people put people at ease and just be friendly and nice and say hello and introduce yourself and try to establish some kind of rapport with people well I usually say to them as well is there anything that I can help you with is there any information that I can give you open it up and let them ask you questions you are the expert so don't disappoint them and if you don't know something for garish sake don't try and BS your way out of it tell the truth we appreciate it more than anything one of the most important jobs rangers do is educating the public so much of our population being in cities they don't know and appreciate wilderness or even wild lands so we have a big education job ahead of us so a lot of the visitors that you get coming into wilderness some of them don't know what a national forest is many of them don't know what capital W wilderness is you have to assume the role of a subtle educator an interpreter to try to imbue visitors a sense of what wilderness is and what's important about it and also how to behave in order to protect and maintain that wilderness character and I have found people really like to see wilderness rangers and they're usually excited to see a wilderness ranger and they want to do things correctly when they're out in our wildernesses how to go to the bathroom how to hike on trails how to find a campsite and so I find that trying to engage with people and teach them has worked really well let's hear how you can protect the wilderness through compliance work my role is it's educational and it's enforcement so those are kind of the two things that I do I'm enforcing the wilderness act so making sure that the act is upheld and then also any local regulations if you want to gain compliance there's several ways you can do that you can use your authority of your uniform or the authority of your agency you've got a badge on and that's a pretty strong authority for some people for some people it's not and they need something that grasps their ethics a little bit more than just simply that it's the lot authority of the resource was actually developed by a professor George Wallace at Colorado State University and it's a communication technique specifically developed for those of us who work in resource management in the back country the authority of the resource is a concept where instead of trying to scold somebody for a negative behavior like maybe they had a campfire in a place where it's no campfires or cleared aside some vegetation to put up their tent the temptation would be to go in and scold them what's a more positive way to handle it is to literally try to orient the person so you're standing side by side and looking at the problem together so you're no longer confronting them face to face you're now switching the orientation to the issue instead of the personality and you're looking at the issue which is the resource damage and then we talk with them about what the appropriate behavior is and try to gain their compliance most wilderness rangers are often talking to visitors about is not camping along the lake shore when you can tell people that you can't camp within 200 feet of the lake shore it's just because it's a regulation and that's the way it is there's a much better way to approach that in a desert environment those water places may be the only place that wildlife has to come and get water at night and if people are camped right along there you're prohibiting them to get crucial water that they need so talking about it in terms of why that regulation is in place not that it's just a regulation can be very helpful wearing the uniform is important and wearing it well is important because it gives you a packed up by 100 years of history and if you're wearing your uniform poorly or we're not wearing the uniform I think it makes us all look a little less professional and people are less likely to listen while working in the back country it's important to stay in contact with your unit there are a number of ways rangers keep in touch when the rangers sign out for their trips we have a calendar that share a sign in sign out calendar where the rangers schedule their exact itinerary for the trip and then day by day they call in they have a daily check in so at any point if someone came up missing we would check to see where they last checked in from and that would be our point where we would go begin a search on this district because of the concern for employee safety we're making it mandatory that people that are going into places where radio transmission is not existent or it would be a day to get out that they'll be carrying the satellite radio so that there really is 24 hour communication and we've done a lot over the years to try to improve our communications but we still have some significant dead zones our forest actually has a policy where you need to notify someone whether it's your supervisor or dispatcher as you enter the dead zone and notify that person as you exit the dead zone most of your visitor contacts will be friendly and pleasant but not all rangers may come in contact with potentially dangerous people let's listen to how you can protect yourself probably our biggest hazards and wilderness are more related to people than the natural setting you don't really ever want to put yourself in a compromising position when you're talking to people as you approach them on the trail you want to keep a little bit of distance respect their space always observe before you approach any situation and just make sure that you can move out safely and quickly if you need to most contacts are going to be extraordinarily friendly but you always want to put yourself in the best possible position well I always tell them I'm not traveling alone I always say my partner is up at the lake or behind me or I'm meeting the trail crew tonight I went up to a lake and I was planning on camping at that lake and there was a couple of guys camp there and they just gave me the heebie jeebies and so I just moved on and you know hiked about three miles further and left them behind and I was fine you can come across poaching situations you can come across folks that decide they just want to live in the back country and are setting up camp and building a cabin and then even you get every now and then you know the freak scenario where there's somebody who's running from the law and there's you know a pretty aggressive or violent person and usually that's something you're going to pick up on real quickly and if you ever do find yourself in a situation like that that's a definite back out of go away record whatever information I have descriptive information and then that's time to get on the radio or go back to the station and get your law enforcement officer as a ranger part of your job will be to keep the wilderness wild through maintenance and rehabilitation work yeah trail maintenance is a huge part of our job and we begin by clearing all the trails it's the first task of the season is clearing trails using cross-cuts bow saws and chopping basically and then we're looking at brushing back the trails but usually then there's a trail crew that will camp out and work on the larger projects just being the first one up a trail at the beginning of the season and cleaning every single water dip up that trail and when you come back down you just you walk past and you just see all of your fine work because every one of those water bars or water dips is clean and ready for the first gully washer of the season so every time we come to a sign that's on a live tree we are loosening the bolts so that the tree can grow and not envelop the sign you know we're trying not to hurt the trees we want them to be able to grow it's funny when people talk to us they always say you have the best job and it does a great job but I don't think they understand that a lot of it is cleaning up messes that people make in the back country we spend a lot of time dismantling fire rings when we take them apart and we get rid of all the charcoal and the burnt pieces and then we rehab the site and try and make it look like nobody was ever there sometimes you get so weighted down with trash and we were in here cleaning and the guy's like oh you're the cleanup crew huh? people think that people come in and clean up after them it's frustrating definitely as wilderness rangers part of the job is to be cleaning up after those folks not properly disposing of their waste it's a lot of toilet paper yeah being real careful with that picking it up and putting it in your garbage bag with gloves on and being really really careful for your personal safety is important unfortunately find a lot of that and so it's basically little pieces of trash so it's the corners of wrappers it would be like the little twisty ties that come on bread bags classic piece of micro trash these guys are pulling noxious weeds and this has been one of our main priorities this summer and we're basically trying to keep these weeds from getting into the wilderness I have the awesome responsibility of protecting this wild scenic river corridor and when I started pulling weeds it's like pulling 80 miles of weeds you know on both sides of the river and just seeing, just realizing how awesome that is so when you're out there just remember where you are take a moment to look around and if you're frustrated with somebody or frustrated at cleaning up yet another campsite that you know were just out a week ago it's important I think just to sort of calm down take a breath you know smell the air feel the breeze and you know really enjoy where you are remember how wonderful a job it really is in some areas you will even be working to improve the condition of the wilderness the wilderness management model is basically a triangle where you're looking at pristine conditions being way up on the apex of the triangle and down at the base you have a wilderness that has some roads or some buildings some development some ongoing uses that aren't really wilderness appropriate and somewhere in the middle on that triangle is a line that is the definition of congressionally designated wilderness our job as managers is to manage the condition of wilderness to meet the intent of the wilderness act and if we can to gently nudge it further up the triangle so that the conditions continue to improve in an appropriate way and that's where we are now trying more actively to go in and stabilize impacts and reduce impacts like with campsites we're trying to figure out how can we still allow for use but shrink the parts of the sites where we don't really need the impacts on many units volunteers play an important role in the wilderness volunteers are critical actually dealing with wilderness work you don't have time to actually do a lot of physical restoration type work unless you have a volunteer crew so with a volunteer crew we're able to go out for about a week at a time and really hammer away at the sites and places that need restoration or cleanup or maintenance we can really do a really good job and also as far as leading a crew of volunteers it's a lot about teamwork they want to do something important and really do something for the better good of the wilderness that's what they came here for they really really enjoy that experience as a ranger you'll play an important role in delivering the wilderness one of the really key responsibilities of the wilderness rangers is they're the eyes and ears on the ground for keeping an eye and assessing changes to the resource our main focus is to inventory human impact basically which would be campsite inventories taking pictures of the campsites GPSing them really really recording them as best we can and then that information will be stored and compared 5 or 10 years down the line a lot of times I have my wilderness rangers will do an element of trail work so they'll also do trail inventories and we'll GPS those trails but we'll also do handwritten notes on specific sections of trail that may need work but then there's also some wilderness areas that have more extensive inventory programs there are places where they are monitoring wildlife they can be monitoring weeds monitoring air quality, water quality lots of other aspects of the whole bigger inventory and monitoring program I carry a little notebook also I mark down my visitor contacts we take information such as how many people were in their party were they on horses, were they hiking were they hiking for the day do they have a dog comments about signs that are loose or stock ties that need work or campsites that need to be closed visitor comments somebody may complain or compliment us or the back country I try to write those down so they're carrying a fair amount of paperwork out there and then the key is coming back in the office and making sure that gets inputted in all the right places wilderness rangers stress the importance of staying healthy to do their jobs let's hear what rangers have learned through experience you need to be in good condition before you start the job you need to be in good condition all summer but I think more importantly you need to be in touch with your condition you need to understand how you're feeling taking care of yourself is very important in the back country because the job is so demanding to be sick or not feeling well and trying to carry a heavy load and get your job done and so to be sick while you're trying to do all those things almost negates the fact that you're out there trying to accomplish anything one thing I learned over the years was to always take time to eat well you use so much energy and so many calories when you're a wilderness ranger I ate well fresh veggies, a lot of fruit and tortellini with alfredo sauce be very conscious about how much water you're drinking tons and tons and tons I'll get a headache so easily and it's just because of water and sun exposure and sweating a lot I never ever drink the water straight it's just not worth the consequences had you already been there don't want it again it's just worth the time just treat it however you want to treat it filter, iodine potable water whatever is your thing it's worth the time unless it's the most severe extreme weather conditions we're out there in hot and cold and rain or sun and snow and just if it's raining we don't generally pack up and say well let's go back because the weather is lousy and I've had enough and that's part of the challenge of doing the wilderness ranger work too pretty much in all weather conditions being prepared for really the change of weather in the seasons is pretty big having your warm clothes having layers with you hypothermia is a big one and usually you start to kind of feel immune to it and there's usually one good fall event that makes you wake up and take notice of what you have in your pack really your pack should only weigh at most a third of your body weight more like a quarter is usually more appropriate and that's really hard to do when you're a wilderness ranger it is a skill trimming things down to what you need and what you're really going to use and what tools can work for multiple purposes for you so that you can cut that down as much as possible because it does wear on your body I've gone to a very lightweight sleeping bag which has taken a lot of weight off I have a small pocket rocket stove I carry two pairs of socks then I have my gaiters to keep that pair of socks clean and that actually works really well and to keep rocks and sand out of my boots so I'm not getting blisters yeah blisters are tough and that's probably the most frequently reoccurring problem and it is remarkable how painful a blister can be the foot maintenance is incredible you've got to take care of your feet because if your feet break down then you can't do your job stretching in the morning and stretching at night it's just a lot of physical lifting you can do it with a backpack and digging with tools and just hiking with a 50 pound or a 60 pound pack for all day it takes quite a bit out of you so make sure that your muscles are stretched out while in the back country even a minor injury can become serious when help is a long ways away let's hear some common sense practices you can use to keep safe and sound self reliance you have to come out here and you're on your own there's consequences to every action you're going to take come in the back of your head that you need to do things smart back here it's not a place where you can take unnecessary risks I always think when I'm doing things out there I stop and think am I going to get hurt doing this and if I do what's that going to mean so there's definitely times that I choose not to do something river crossings are actually probably one of our more dangerous situations and there are times when you just need to be able to say not today or I got myself over here this morning but I'm not going back tonight I'm going to wait for tomorrow morning until water drops a little bit the times when I almost got into trouble were times when I was thinking about something else probably watching the the otter cross the river instead of paying attention to how slippery the rock was and those things happen so fast it was one of those classic summer thunderstorms where they just roll in one after another one bigger than the next so there was lightning popping all around and it was very loud and I had no business being on a pass and it is not worth it when you're in that kind of situation come out you can turn around and go in a different drainage but all it takes is one accident and you're in there by yourself and it's just not worth it as a ranger you'll have to deal with emergencies you come across a visitor that's got has either been injured or they have a medical situation going on where they need assistance and that's where your role as a public servant really comes into play first hand because you're there to provide assistance and do whatever you can to help those people or facilitate them getting the help that they need the best you can do is stabilize somebody and call for some help the dispatch person is your first line of contact and they've got a whole list so it's kind of like 9-1-1 from the district perspective they have a whole list of who to call next and how to start that chain of events happening for you this year we've probably been involved with about four different search and rescues it's not uncommon that we're actually somewhere near the injured party and can move in that direction either to help with first aid to help figure out where a helicopter is going to land or just to stabilize the whole situation in this program you heard about topics such as how our wilderness act came to be the diverse skills you'll need to do your job the importance of educating wilderness visitors your role in maintaining and improving the wilderness character and how you can stay healthy and safe in the back country I get a lot of comments on oh here comes the woman with the best job in America and I've had that more than once and it really it's a great job it's hard work and it's challenging but it is just so rewarding