Forest Service trail crew taps teen power
It was a God-send to a Kaniksu National Forest trail crew that’s swamped with work and strapped for funding.
About 100 teenagers and 25 adults from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints summer youth conference marched into the Selkirk Mountains last weekend to tackle tractor-size projects with muscle power.
“They were so well organized,” said Pat Hart, trail maintenance coordinator for the Bonners Ferry Ranger District. “They had a great attitude and they came to work. If I told them to shovel a 4-by-6-by-10 (foot hole) they’d say ‘OK’ and do it.”
The group was focused on preventing more washouts on an abandoned logging road that’s been converted into a trail to Snow and Bottleneck lakes.
They used Pulaskis and shovels to remove culverts ranging from 12 to 36 inches in diameter and then rounded-out the creek channels through the old road bed to handle high flows and prevent massive erosion that was occurring as the unmaintained culverts become plugged — a major forest issue they saw first-hand as they labored.
Then, in a flashback to the building of the pyramids, the teens formed teams using straps to hand-carry the culverts for up to 1.8 miles down the trail to the road.
“By the time they left, we were looking at 17 culverts at the trailhead ready for our trucks to come pick up,” Hart said. “It was amazing.”
The church group was a model example of volunteer efforts that are helping the Forest Service and other public land managers stretch meager funding for restoration and maintenance.
The volunteer groups benefit, too.
“It’s great to see the improvements we can make up here (on the forest), but it’s also great for the kids,” said Doug Beazer of Sandpoint, one of the adult organizers who was hard at work with his group re-routing a section of trail.
“Some of these kids have never done a hard day’s labor. It’s a good introduction for them.
“They learn what they can accomplish from hard work and working together,” said Russ Hiatt, the church’s project organizer. “It prepares them for the hard things in life.”
The Mormon youths in this conference came from a region ranging from Sandpoint to Newport to Libby.
“One of the volunteers asked us why we don’t just roll the culverts into the brush and leave them out of sight,” said Rusty Gahr of the Forest Service trail crew assisting with the work project.
“We try to get as much trash out of the woods as we can. People bring in enough trash the way it is. We figure with 100 strong kids, we have a shot at getting this beast out,” he added, pointing to a 20-foot section of 36-inch-diameter culvert that weighed hundreds of pounds.
Not only did the teenagers carry it out, they formed a tug-o-war-like team to help haul the culvert on a zip-line over the huge washout at Corner Creek.
“We can’t use helicopters or explosives to do this work in here because it’s grizzly habitat,” Gahr said. “Muscle power is our only option, and we have a lot of that today.”
Hart has been a pioneer in getting volunteers from near and far to help with trail projects in one of the region’s popular backcountry recreation areas.
Her next big group of helpers will be from Camp Thunderbird, a girls summer camp based in Minnesota that’s found a home on the Bonners Ferry District for their service energy.
“They’ve been here before, and let me tell you, these girls can work,” Hart said. “I think they have a little thing about going back and showing the boys camp what girls can accomplish.”
Other scheduled work groups include the Backcountry Horsemen and Idaho Conservation League.
“The American Hiking Society’s Volunteer Vacations group will head up Long Canyon this summer, the National Sierra Club group will go up to finish work they’ve been doing near Myrtle Lake, and a priest is bringing a Catholic young men’s group up to work at Divide Lake,” Hart said.
“And we have three guys from the local Echo Springs alternative school who volunteer three days a week, plus a few motorcyclists who help put up signs and stuff.
“It all adds up.”