Poudre Wilderness Volunteers

In 1995, a volunteer ranger for the USFS, Charles Bell, who patrolled the trails of what is now the Canyon Lakes Ranger District, became extremely worried about the cuts to the ranger district’s budget over the previous three years – from 3 full-time persons and 30 seasonal employees down to just 1 full-time person and 2 part-timers to look after its extensive backcountry and wilderness areas.

With USFS support, he decided to form a volunteer organization that was named Poudre Wilderness Volunteers (PWV) after the major river that flows through the district.

PWV put its first volunteers on the trail in the summer of 1996 and now has more than 250 volunteers, making it the pre-eminent organization of its kind in the country.  No other organization providing volunteer rangers for the Forest Service is this big, provides as many hours on the trail, and does so without any paid staff.  It is run by a volunteer board, which changes regularly providing a constant flow of new ideas and new energies to make PWV such a strong organization.

PWV is not an environmental advocacy group.

Its primary purpose is to protect the region's pristine wilderness and backcountry areas through public education.  Many wilderness and backcountry users have no idea what a wilderness is or how it must be left “untrammeled".  Many of them know little about low impact camping.  In keeping with its motto “Conserve & Educate”, PWV’s primary task on the trails is to contact forest visitors, help them understand how to use the forest in a “leave-no-trace” manner, and assure that visitors are properly prepared to have a safe, satisfying forest experience.  PWV patrols 55 trails – many of them outside of official wilderness areas.

Poudre Wilderness Volunteers recruits citizens who fully represent the community and those who use the region's outdoor resources.  They commit a minimum of six days each summer to hiking or riding "with a purpose."
PWV has the most rigorous and comprehensive training of any volunteer group of its kind, and it carefully trains volunteers how to work in a positive way with the public.

Poudre Wilderness Volunteers have no law enforcement authority but use persuasion and diplomacy to secure compliance with wilderness regulations and "leave no trace" practices.

Poudre Wilderness Volunteers wear uniform shirts with identifying patches and name badges that make them a highly visible non-official U.S. Forest Service presence on the trail.  They carry two-way radios, and they are trained to handle various emergency situations that might be encountered in the wilderness.

No one is paid for any services rendered to this volunteer organization.

PWV also serves as “the eyes and ears” of the U.S. Forest Service, reporting on the number of visitors on the trails and about problems encountered in protecting the forest from misuse by the public.

Several times each summer PWV’s volunteers are also involved in helping out backcountry users in trouble, and the PWV trail crew clears the trails each spring of trees that have fallen over the winter.

While the Canyon Lakes Ranger District budget has improved over the past 10 years, it remains short staffed and with insufficient funds to fully manage the vast lands within its jurisdiction.  At the same time, forest usage has continued to grow exponentially.  The Arapahoe & Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland ranks right near the top in the nation year after year in terms of public usage.  And with more than 3 million people living within an easy drive of this forest it is no wonder.

Just how effective is PWV?  Here are the numbers:  After 14 seasons it has contacted more than 111,000 people on the trail.  In the summer of 2009, it did 959 patrols, 40% of which were in wilderness, and contacted 12,669 people. It took out 586 trees that had fallen across the trails, tore up 175 fire rings, hauled out more than 300 pounds of trash, and worked with folks in 57 improper camps to persuade them to follow LNT principles.  PWV volunteers also reported seeing 2294 dogs, 323 of them illegally off-leash in wilderness, and explained to their owners why dogs need to be on leash in sensitive areas.  And its weed crew has taken out hundreds of pounds of noxious, invasive weeds.   So far this year, PWV volunteers have put in more than 20,000 hours, to which the USFS assigns a dollar value of $446,756.

Thanks to PWV, the most heavily used wilderness and backcountry areas in northern Colorado are much cleaner, and the numbers of fire rings dismantled, dogs off leash, and illegal campsites found have dropped markedly.  One veteran outdoorsman said recently that the Rawah Wilderness, which PWV patrols, is the cleanest wilderness area in all of Colorado.  While there is always room for improvement, PWV is making a very important contribution in helping the USFS manage human impact in the region.