From forest newbies to ‘certified trail dogs’: College students tell of their experiences maintaining wilderness routes in the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation

The Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation was created nearly 20 years ago to steward those two huge chunks of primitive country and keep them accessible to visitors.

But there’s a second, less visible outcome – exposing young people to the lessons and challenges of wilderness and thereby shaping their career paths and life passions.

Both were on display in Moscow last week during a presentation by the organization’s 2025 wilderness ranger fellows. The college students are fresh off a summer of maintaining trails in the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church River of No Return wilderness areas and a few forays into the Gospel Hump and Sawtooth wilderness areas that cover millions of acres in central Idaho stretching roughly from Stanley to Lowell. They spent 14 weeks swinging pickaxes and Pulaskis and using primitive crosscut saws while backpacking through the vast tangle of mountains and river canyons.

Some of them had never slept under the stars before nor toted 60-pound packs laden with camping gear, primitive tools and food. They emerged from the experience as “certified trail dogs full of the right kind of grit, with knowledge and confidence to tackle anything out there,” in the words of Josh Page, the group’s program director.

They also were baptized in the soul-enriching effects of wild country “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Raegan Dick is a forestry and wildlife ecology student at Michigan Technological University. When offered the job last January, she struggled with the decision. She wondered if it was right for her, if the work would be too daunting for someone from a relatively flat state and worried if she accepted, a better opportunity might be missed.

“I can say confidently now that I’ve never felt so convincingly that I belong somewhere, and that I’ve made the right choice for myself to do something this summer, and I’m so glad I didn’t wait for something better to come along, because I think this is about as good as it gets,” she said.

In the beginning, the daily hikes from camp to work site were indeed a challenge. The wilderness rangers in training would often gain thousands of feet in elevation before their work began.

“I found that this challenge turned into something that I looked forward to each day, trying to do better than I had the day prior,” Dick said.

Dick was chosen by her collegues to be honored as the Warren Miller Wilderness Skills Fellow, named for the late wilderness ranger and primitive tools expert.

Abe Wilkinson, a University of Idaho student from Grangeville, was no stranger to Idaho’s wild country prior to his stint with the organization. Still, he came away with a new outlook.

He sees wilderness as a combination of clarity, challenge and community.

“You get to visit these awesome lakes, be on top of some pretty amazing peaks. And when you’re out there, you look out and you really get a great perspective of just how small you are and how big the world around you is, and just how lucky we are to be able to have these opportunities to get outside.”

It was a challenge to work despite days of soaking and chilling rain, living in a nylon tent that, no matter its weatherproof attributes, became damp and rank. He counts the people he met, his comrades and volunteer groups that accompanied them on some stints, as one of the bright spots.

“It’s just amazing to be with these people,” he said.

Bryce Schull, from Springfield, Ill., had a pretty good idea he was in for a special summer. He likes working with his hands and being outside and wants a career that keeps him far from a desk.

“I went into it thinking it would be probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done and I think it still blew me away.”

Jacquelyn Bouchard from Bradenton, Fla., had spent plenty of time outdoors. But her home state has nothing comparable to Idaho’s wilderness areas in terms of solitude and vastness. She relished the hard work with blister-inducing hand tools.

“It was super fun to get crosscut bucking and felling certified. Those saws are no joke, and there’s definitely a rhythm and technique to using them that I feel like I’ve gotten down pretty well throughout the summer,” she said. “I also learned the basics of stock packing, how to load boxes so they ride balanced and don’t rattle around on pack animals, and how to work and act around horses and mules in the backcountry. We don’t have anything like that in Florida.”

Dick had the chance to lead a volunteer group of teens from Iowa on one of her hitches and as a Midwesterner felt pressure to ensure they had good wilderness experiences.

“Which was so special because just two months prior, I was seeing these things for the first time and now I was a teacher instead of the person who was there to learn.”

The experience has opened her eyes to new career paths. She had previously switched her emphasis from forestry to wildlife ecology but now wants a career in wilderness. She said the foundation made that possible.

“I’ve really been able to step back and be more of a student than I ever really have been this summer, which is awesome,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn a lot. So, I’m wanting to go more in the wilderness direction.”

Opening eyes and opening trails is what the foundation is all about, said Jim Heidelberger, a member of the organization’s board of directors from Moscow and an annual participant in volunteer trail maintenance trips. This summer came with the extra challenge of turmoil within the U.S. Forest Service that manages the two wilderness areas. The agency was unable to hire trail crews and lost staff to layoffs and retirements at the direction of the Trump administration.

Supporters of the foundation responded with record donations, enabling it to hire its full complement of wilderness ranger fellows and other staff.

“I think it’s because people who value wilderness realize how tenuous it is,” Heidelberger said. “Because it’s not there forever unless we do something to be proactive and make it happen. So people that were small donors became bigger donors because of the importance wilderness is to them. It’s such a treasure to have these wilderness areas and if we don’t do something to keep them open, people don’t get to go there and pretty soon nobody is interested in it and then you are not going to get people like us who are passionate about it.”

More information about the foundation is available at selwaybitterroot.org.