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Poudre Wilderness Volunteers 2014 Fact SheetPoudre Wilderness Volunteers (PWV) is a Larimer County, Colorado nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 to assist the Canyon Lakes Ranger District of the United States Forest Service in managing and protecting the wilderness and backcountry areas within its jurisdiction. To achieve this mission, PWV recruits, trains, equips, and fields citizen volunteers to serve as wilderness rangers and hosts for the purpose of educating the public, and provides other appropriate support to these wild areas.
PWV has grown substantially and diversified since its founding and is considered to be one of the largest, most effective organizations of its kind in the nation.
The Need
- Federal appropriations for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are not sufficient to cover the costs of forest management and conservation. Furthermore, the USFS doesn’t have enough staff to adequately patrol and monitor the Wilderness and backcountry trails in our area.
- Backcountry use continues to rise, reflecting population growth and demographic changes along the Front Range and elsewhere in the nation. A recent National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (2000 – 2007) indicates that participation in outdoor recreation activities increased by 25 - 31% and that Americans’ interest in nature and nature-based recreation is changing. While activities such as hiking, backpacking, horse riding, mountain climbing, and snow skiing have recently shown declines in popularity, viewing or photographing birds, wildlife, and flowers and trees have increased by 19 to 26%, and kayaking has increased by 63%. In 2010, the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests were visited by 6 million people, the second highest number of visits to a National Forest in the nation.
- Many backcountry users have no idea what a designated Wilderness is or why it must be left “untrammeled" by man. A majority of them know very little about low-impact camping. If there is nobody to guide visitors in Wilderness use, some of our Wilderness areas could become so heavily impacted that additional restrictions on public use will be imposed.
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This summer the PWV Restoration Committee worked mainly on the North Fork Trail but also two days on the Hewlett Gulch Trail. We held 13 public workdays, 3 days of PWV only training, 2 training days with the Larimer Country Youth Conservation Corps and 8 workdays with the Larimer County Youth Conservation Corps trail crew. One of our public days we had the Rocky Mountain Conservancy trail crews and some of their staff and volunteers join us. This combined effort allowed PWV to build 1 mile of new trail through some very difficult terrain. We built a number of rock walls, moved a lot of dirt and built the abutments for a log stringer bridge over the river. The terrain we built this new trail through was very challenging. In some areas rock retaining walls were required to hold the trail in place on the side of the hill.
154 individuals, 44 PWV members and 117 of the general public plus 10 from the Larimer Country Youth Conservation Corps provided the labor. This amounted to 475 workdays for a total of 4,275 hours. We also ate a lot of food and had some fun along the way.
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More patrols in our wilderness areas, stronger connections in the PWV community, backpacking with experienced mentors — Wild51 had ambitious goals — and succeeded! “Wild51” refers to the 51st year of the Wilderness Act, which has protected our wilderness heritage in perpetuity. From August 6-18, we celebrated with patrols all across the Comanche Peak Wilderness and the Rawah Wilderness.
The Wild51 planners are still working on the numbers, but both Comanche Peak and Rawah had many more patrols than usual during those times. Lots of us got involved, patrolled together, welcomed new backcountry PWVs, built skills, and had a terrific time!
We’ll post details here once the analysis is done. And if you missed out this year, planning is already underway for Wild52.
Wild51 Committee: Ali, Gerry & Dave