Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Expect Nothing, Pull Saw, Slay, Repeat
Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
I'll Tell You What
Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Why Work in Wilderness
WRF
Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Wilderness Growth

Forrest reflects on his first hitch in the Bitterroot National Forest.

Selway-Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation
Moments in the Mountains

Diving In!

Ella Pattison | Wilderness & Trails Intern

Internship Training- Weeks 1 & 2

I landed in Missoula the day before we started (from Tennessee/Georgia), and I was able to meet almost everyone before we began work the next day.

Ella during Wilderness First Aid training at the SBFC office with a fake eye impalement - taken by Krissy Ferriter

The next morning, we all piled into a couple cars and went to orientation. The first few days were filled with Wilderness First Aid and CPR training. We learned how to stop bleeding, take care of snake bites, make splints, and just generally be awesome.

After WFA and CPR training, we continued our education at the Northern Rockies Wilderness Skills Institute (NRWSI) at the Powell Ranger Station. Early in the week at NRWSI, we learned how to properly clear a trail and use tools like loppers, hand saws, and pulaskis. During the second half of the week, we learned how to use crosscuts and axes, and we practiced cutting logs and felling trees. Outside of learning how to maintain a trail, we spent most of our time at Powell Ranger Station, in the game room playing ping pong, foosball, and pool. We closed off the NRWSI training week with a barn dance and a bonfire.

NRWSI: Ella and Forrest during NRWSI training using a crosscut saw to fell a tree - taken by Emilia 

After our week at Powell, we separated into two groups and went on a short overnight backpacking trip to test gear and learn about how hitches will work. My group hiked up Fish Creek, along the Lochsa River. The views were wonderful and we were able to camp right by an abandoned cabin. After a good night's rest, we hiked back to the van and embarked on our long journey home. After a nice long nap, we made it back to Missoula.

We had a day off before jumping back into things with tool maintenance and rehandling, and the next day we worked on our leadership skills.

So far this has been an extremely fun and informative experience and I cannot wait to work hard, learn more, and see where this summer takes me!

Forrest playing pool at Powell Ranger Station after crosscut training. - Taken by Riley

From left to right Riley, Ella, Amelia, Andrew, Jaxon on a bridge during the shakedown hitch in Fish Creek. - Taken by Riley

Ella Pattison

Johnson City, TN

Dalton State College

Ella Pattison grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, kayaking, climbing, and camping. A 110 day cross-country camping trip cemented her love for long days, new places, and wild adventures such as rafting the full 280 miles of the Grand Canyon and trekking in the Andes. Her love of the wilderness has led her to participate in environmental research, studying light pollution, and native entomology. When she is not outside, she is often found on stage acting, fiddling, or playing the piano - skills that are only occasionally useful in the backcountry. She is looking forward to a summer of hard work, learning, and good miles at SBFC.

Spring Break in Hells Canyon

Levi Armichardy

College of Idaho Student / Trail Crew Leader

Another one? Oh boy! Most people might feel something like frustration or anger when they see the trail disappear into a tangle of brush, branches, bark, and wood. However, there are a few crazy people who get excited, who for some reason find some enjoyment in muscle fatigue and a faceful of brush. We’re called “trail crews.” We tend to work in the background, but if you’ve ever hiked on a trail without having to climb over logs or fight through brush, you’ve seen our work. Down the trail behind me, two of my crewmates pulled a crosscut saw through a massive log, while 4 others worked on cutting back the brush that engulfed the trail. I personally was armed with loppers, a Katanaboy handsaw with a formidable 3-foot blade, and a pulaski (a combination of an axe and a hoe). I set down my pack and went to work.

On March 21, I woke up in a dorm room at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. I went to bed that night in a tent on the banks of the Snake River in Hells Canyon. I was the leader of a 7-person trail crew, a joint effort by the Idaho Trails Association, the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation, and College of Idaho Outdoor Program. Our objective: clearing the Little Granite Creek Trail, which climbs 6000’ in 7 miles from the mouth of Granite Creek to Hibbs Cow Camp in the Seven Devils. Since I first scouted the trail in 2022, several ITA crews had worked from the top and bottom to re-open it. Over the course of a week, we’d build on the efforts of those previous crews, pushing upward.

It took me an hour of clearing brush and branches just to reveal the 30-inch trunk of the ponderosa. Full-sized saplings grew in the trail beneath it, indicators of just how long this log had laid here. I felt a pang of regret as I cut them down, leaving their white stumps bleeding sap. What right do I have to determine who lives or dies? I thought as I tossed the saplings out of the trail corridor. Why should these trees die just so I can walk easily down a trail? It’s a question of ethics that’s occurred to me before while pulling a saw through a rotten log and watching ants crawl out or wielding a pair of loppers in a thicket of brush. How is disrupting or ending the lives of other beings an act of stewardship? The answer I’ve settled on for now (though I’m still pondering it) is this: if killing saplings to clear a trail creates opportunities for more people to access the area, then perhaps those people will feel some sort of connection to the land, and through that connection they will be more inspired to care for it. In sacrificing a few, I’m working toward the protection of the entire ecosystem. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I continue lopping brush.

Camping on the river afforded us the luxuries of a wall tent, fresh food, and easy fishing access. It did not make for an easy commute to work. We started up the trail each day around 8:30 AM, just as the sun brushed the top of the canyon wall with orange. In a mile we came to our first creek crossing at the old Hibbs Ranch. Another mile, another crossing. On our first day up, knowing we’d be doing this a lot, we’d taken some time to build a temporary bridge of alder logs. Another steep mile, another crossing. This is where we’d officially begun work on the first day, improving the crossing by digging tread, building a rock wall, and clearing brush. No bridge for this one, just a series of slippery moss-covered rocks. We rest for a bit before continuing up. Another mile, another crossing. On our first day of work on this section, we’d cleared most of the plentiful logs and brush that had obscured the trail here on the north side of the creek. Our second day brought us to the fourth creek crossing (more slippery rocks) and through a landslide on the other side. In these two days, everybody learned the basics of crosscut-saw-pulling, pulaski-swinging, and brush-lopping. We’d built rock walls, re-opened the trail through the landslide, and cut some pretty tricky trees on steep hillsides. Turns out, all that was just a warmup for the third day. 

I finished prepping the log just as two of my crewmates arrived with the crosscut after finishing the previous “big one,” the second one of the day. We discuss the cut plan - two cuts, angled to allow the log to drop and roll out of the trail. I take a position on the downhill side, and my partner hands me the saw across the log. We line the saw up with our planned cut. A few short strokes start the kerf (the gap formed by the saw), then we move to full strokes as the saw stabilizes. We move our whole bodies in a back-and-forth rocking motion with the saw, each of us in turn pulling the length through then guiding it back as the other pulls. It’s hard to describe the sound a well-sharpened crosscut saw makes as it cuts through a log. A sound of abrasive metal on wood, punctuated by brief pauses as the saw changes directions, with a faint ringing sound throughout, a song to those who pull. I let myself be absorbed by the song and the movement of the saw. My focus narrows to the teeth, the sawdust, and ever-deepening kerf. 

Trailwork is repetitive. Pull, guide, repeat. Raise, swing, repeat. Lop, throw, repeat. Back and forth, up and down. It’s not all completely mindless physical work - each log is a puzzle of how to move it with the least amount of effort and danger - but there are undeniably long periods of repetitive motion with no music or TV or social media or anything else to distract you from your own thoughts and movements. I suppose some people might find it boring. Some might be driven crazy by the silence inside their head. Me? I love it. All of my worries and troubles fade away. The homework waiting for me in the frontcountry doesn’t matter. How I look doesn’t matter. What somebody said about somebody else doesn’t matter. Even larger things like the state of the global economy seem distant. Worries about things I can’t change disappear, replaced by a focus on the things I can change. Individual actions are re-empowered. I can’t end an international war, but I can master the next pull of the saw, the next swing of the pulaski. There’s a certain purity in such striving. I think that perhaps some of the value of trailwork lies in the forgetting of things that don’t matter and the remembering of some of the things that do - hard work, a good crew, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

Kneeling on the downhill side, I can’t see my partner pulling the saw on the other side. We’ve finished the cut on one side of the log and are now three-quarters of the way through the other. I watch the kerf for signs of widening, ears straining for the crack that indicates the beginning of the end. I don’t want to be here when the log breaks free - it’d steamroll me in an instant. So I watch and listen and communicate with my partner. We stop to pound the wedges (four of them!) deeper into the kerf. Back to sawing. “6 inches left on my side.” “Same here.” Finally, a crack. A few more strokes. More cracks. Time for me to leave. I take the handle off my end of the saw and retreat down the trail a few feet, out of the fall line. My partner finishes the log “single-bucking,” pushing and pulling the big saw from the uphill side. When, at last, he breaks through, the log rolls nicely down and out of the trail. By that time, it was late afternoon, and the others had returned from brushing farther up the trail. Having cleared 3 big trees and several hundred feet of thick brush, we called it a day and started the trek back to camp.

Two days later, I watched the flat that had been our home for a week disappear around the bend as the roaring jet boat motors pushed us upriver. The final stats for our trips were as follows: 51 trees cut, 960 feet of brushing, 660 feet of treadwork, 3 drains dug, and 1.5 total miles of trail cleared. Across four work days, we hiked 24 miles with over 10,000 total feet of elevation gain and loss. Statistics don’t get everything though. They don’t capture the satisfaction of hiking back down the trail each day and seeing the work we’d done, nor the excitement of the 34 times we crossed Little Granite Creek on slippery rocks and logs. You can’t reduce the grandeur of Hells Canyon in the spring to mere numbers: green hillsides dotted with blooming syringas, snow on the upper elevations, and blue sky above. And stats completely miss the little moments of community: stretch circles in the morning, fishing after work, sharing meals in the wall tent, playing cards in the red glow of our headlamps. There just aren’t any numbers to capture the fulfillment of doing good hard work with fun people in beautiful places.

Levi Armichardy is a horseman, backpacker, hunter, and trails person who grew up in the Idaho backcountry. He is currently an Environmental Studies major and Outdoor Program Trip Instructor at the College of Idaho. In addition to being outside, Levi enjoys reading, writing, and playing guitar.

Moose Creek Bears Witness

Moose Creek Bears Witness

Sarah Bates

Moose Creek Volunteer Host

June 24 – July 6, 2025

 

Perhaps you’ve heard of “witness trees”—centuries-old trees living near sites of historically significant events and documented in a Library of Congress archive. People visiting these sites often feel moved to touch the ancient trees and marvel at their persistence.

Scarred ponderosa pine near the confluence of Moose Creek and the Selway River, taken by Sarah Bates, Moose Creek Ranger Station Volunteer Host, June 2025.

I’m drawn to witness trees in the wild, undocumented in official registers. These gnarled giants with fire scars, lightning-struck crowns, and ancient peeled bark remind us that we’re all visitors in the long arc of time that plays out on a dynamic landscape.

Over the past two years, I’ve considered how human-built structures might serve this same purpose. As a volunteer host at the 100-year-old Moose Creek Ranger Station in the middle of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, I step briefly into a remarkable corner of living history, where a rich wilderness story continues to evolve.

The log structures comprising the historic Moose Creek Ranger Station supported the Forest Service’s vigorous fire suppression policies that emerged after the 1910 Big Burn, as well as more recent priorities for wilderness protection. Recognizing its significance, the U.S. Department of the Interior added the site to the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.

Moose Creek was a learning lab for the early Forest Service fire program. Rangers, lookouts, and smokechasers sought to snuff out fires before they grew to conflagrations. With a new grass runway in 1931, the agency experimented with aircraft to support fire suppression efforts, and the first-ever team of smokejumpers launched from Moose Creek in 1940.

Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation Trail Crew Leader, Enzo, heading off hitch at Moose Creek Ranger Station, taken by Sarah Bates, Moose Creek Ranger Station Volunteer Host, July 2025.

The Forest Service recognized the Moose Creek Ranger District’s superb wilderness characteristics by managing it as a primitive area starting in 1936, and Congress included the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness in the original 9.1-million-acre National Wilderness System in 1964. Wilderness designation prohibits motorized and mechanized equipment and transport, so this designation sparked a revival of near-lost skills like clearing trails with crosscut saws.

Thanks in part to its historic role in Forest Service aviation, the 1964 wilderness legislation allowed aircraft to continue to land at Moose Creek. Today, private airplanes are frequent visitors to Moose Creek, often flown by people with long histories here. Several private pilots serve as long-time SBFC volunteer hosts; many volunteer for work parties to maintain the facilities.

A volunteer host’s responsibilities include tracking airfield landings, monitoring informal campsites, facility maintenance, and encouraging visitors to see themselves as wilderness stewards. During the Selway River floating season, boaters walk up from the river to tour the historic ranger station, hike to the nearby Shissler Peak lookout, pet the stock in the corral, and visit with trail crew members resting between hitches.

This past June, I met Sven Magnuson and Debbie McElroy, who backpacked into Moose Creek over a rough, steep trail from Elk Mountain. Arriving at the Ranger’s house (now the volunteer host’s residence), Sven remarked that this was his first visit since he was a baby, when his dad, Bill Magnuson, served as the Moose Creek District Ranger in 1960-61. Anyone who has seen the excellent PBS documentary “Higgins Ridge” is familiar with the remarkable presence of mind and leadership the elder Magnuson displayed when two crews of smokejumpers were caught in the middle of a raging fire in 1961. Our moving conversation reminded me that every historic event is someone’s family story.

Sven Magnuson (son of former Moose Creek District Ranger William Magnuson) and Debbie McElroy visiting Moose Creek Ranger Station on June 28, 2025, taken by Sarah Bates, Moose Creek Ranger Station Volunteer Host.

Throughout my stay, I marvel at the ingenuity and self-sufficiency of those who built the ranger station structures by hand from local materials and maintained them with whatever they had on hand. It’s a rare experience to live and work off-line and off-grid, and it feels good to know that this small effort helps the Forest Service keep this remarkable historic site protected and open to the public.

As dusk arrives and I sit quietly enjoying the changing light, I think of all who have experienced this place and contributed to its history. And I can’t help but see Moose Creek Ranger Station itself as a silent witness to a century of evolving lessons in how to co-exist with a wilderness landscape.

More Info:

SBFC’s role in stewarding Moose Creek: https://ppolinks.com/forestservicemuseum/2021_5_60.pdf

Sarah Bates is a volunteer lookout host at the Moose Creek Ranger Station in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.

Tales from the Tower

Jeff Padgett

Volunteer Lookout Host- St. Mary Lookout

Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

The author at St. Mary’s

I have been an SBFC volunteer at St. Mary Lookout near Stevensville, Montana for eight summers. There are two current volunteers who have been doing it longer than I have.

What causes volunteers like us to come back summer after summer? One rather obvious reason is that St. Mary, at 9351 feet on the eastern edge of the Bitterroot range, has one of the most expansive views in the Bitterroots. However, this year, I finally realized that another equally important reason for my circling back to St. Mary annually is the interesting and sometimes inspiring conversations that I have with visitors. 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a talker. I make a point of greeting each visitor to St. Mary as they reach the mountaintop. I sometimes miss a few on the busiest days, like Labor Day weekend, but I invite everyone that I do greet to come into the lookout. A substantial proportion take me up on my offer. 

Most visitors ask questions such as: how long do I stay at the lookout (usually for two weeks, but one year I only volunteered for a week), where is Trapper Peak (the tallest mountain in the Bitterroots), where do you go to the bathroom (there is a viewful little perch on the southwestern side of the lookout, mostly concealed from view), what kind of wildlife do you see up here (personally, I have only seen elk, black bear, Clark’s nutcrackers and chipmunks), and so on. Perhaps with every 10th visitor or so (St. Mary gets 1500-2000 visitors in its approximately 8-week summer season), I engage in an extended conversation about all sorts of topics, which enriches my day and hopefully that of the visitor as well. 

St. Mary Peak Lookout

Many visitors extend great kindness to me. Pretty much every season, someone brings me a beer (which I drink AFTER visiting hours). They are kept cool in a box that draws air from the basement of the lookout, and which keeps food cool as well. One visitor this year left me a sandwich and some beef jerky. I have had visitors bring fresh fruit (much appreciated), a packet of smoked salmon, and homemade cookies.

One little girl, Corinna, was with her dad. She was so excited to see the inside of a lookout. I don’t believe that many visitors to St. Mary have been in a lookout before. A lookout has been on the top of St. Mary since 1934. After 1977, the US Forest Service quit staffing St. Mary regularly. So for many years, people would trek up the mountain, and if they had chosen their day well, could soak up the expansive view to which I referred earlier. However, the lookout may or may not have been staffed and open to the public.

Here’s where SBFC steps in. At some point in the early 2010s, SBFC decided to sponsor volunteers to stay in the lookout at St. Mary for either one or two weeks. As a condition of opening the lookout, the USFS required SBFC volunteers to actively look to spot fires and to expeditiously report any that we do spot. However, if there are no fires in our viewshed, we are to greet visitors, welcome them to the lookout, and answer any questions that they might have. This allowed Corinna and her dad to enter the lookout, and the world had one happier little girl. 

One year during my stint, a couple came up with a group of about 6-8 others. They were wearing backpacks and hiking clothing, and the woman was carrying flowers. They were going to be married on St. Mary!! I let the bride-to-be use the lookout as her dressing room. Her mother, who was from Indiana, had never hiked to a 9000-foot elevation in her life, but she said she wasn’t going to miss her daughter’s wedding! They aren’t even the first to be married on St. Mary. I’ve had another couple come up to the lookout on the anniversary of their marriage on St. Mary. 

This year, a man brought his father’s ashes to the summit. An 80-year-old man recovering from shoulder surgery came up and we had an extended conversation about aging (I am 68). He has hiked the Appalachian Trail. I am currently in my third year of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in approximately 500-mile segments. We spoke of the importance of squeezing all of the enjoyment possible out of life while we still have the health and mobility to do so. 

Many times, the conversation with visitors turns to a spiritual topic. I think that mountaintops bring that out in people, a sense of continuity in a transient world. St. Mary isn’t special in that regard. The ocean, the Grand Canyon, or a dark night sky full of stars evoke the same sentiment. People climb a mountain to experience something different from their everyday existence. A mountain gives them a spot to contemplate their place in the universe. It centers them and gives them a sense of peace, allowing them to face another day in a world that sometimes seems on the verge of falling apart. 

I firmly believe that trail maintenance should be SBFC’s primary mission. A cleared trail permits access to a quiet natural realm where the hum of mankind quiets. Yet I am grateful, as an SBFC volunteer and donor, that SBFC has had the courage and insight to try different avenues to allow its public to access the tranquility of the natural world. I believe that opening and staffing St. Mary lookout has been a public good. That is really my main reason for writing this “Tale from the Tower”. 

Thank you, SBFC!

Jeff Padgett is an SBFC volunteer from Missoula, MT.

Oh To Be Back in the Selway-Bitterroot!

Olivia Hinds

Big Rock Trail | Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

August 7th-10th 2025

Volunteer / 2023 Wilderness Ranger Fellow


Two summers ago, I was a Wilderness Ranger Fellow with SBFC under the great crew leader Connor Adams. Based out of Powell Ranger Station, I enjoyed spending more time getting to know the great state of Idaho's wilderness, learned the hard skills of reading the binds of trees and how to clear the trail of them, and creating many close relationships that I still have today. 

I have always been a dabbler in many aspects of the environmental world, in a story I wrote about my experience swimming with salmon as part of a snorkelling crew for Idaho Fish and Game, I said this about my time as a Wilderness Ranger Fellow:

“A year after this experience, I stand now frequently on dry land, working in another piece of Idaho’s wilderness. For 8 consecutive days at a time, I find myself immersed in the largest wilderness complex in the lower 48 states, spanning a total of 3.6 million acres. Today, I woke up at 3:45 am in pitch darkness to start boiling water for my new crew. As I sit and reflect in my solitude, I can hear wolves howling in the distance. I face different difficulties this summer, from hiking 24 miles in a single day to navigating over 2,000 logs in another. I am lucky enough to touch trees, using the traditional hand tools of a crosscut saw and ax to clear logs out of trails, sheltering in 100-year-old pine smelling wood cabins, and roaming rugged areas and gorgeous ridgelines in the Selway-Bitterroot. After a long and sweaty day of manual labor, I crave the post-work hot afternoons for the time I get to be in the water. I sit beneath it for as long as my body can withstand, feeding flies to the trout circling around my feet, singing to myself, and contemplating how lovely it is to feel the H2O molecules swirling on my skin.” 

So early this summer, I was beyond excited to be invited to come volunteer for SBFC again with other volunteers! I was excited for a few reasons: 

  1. During my season with SBFC, our crew did not have any volunteer projects. As someone who loves working with and teaching others, this was exciting to me! 

  2. I have a deep connection to Idaho and after working in it, the Selway-Bitterroot. This was something I experienced when I climbed Grave Peak after my summer as a fellow, and found myself crying at the top from the emotion of seeing it so vastly. 

  3. Project in the Selway Crags! I mean come on…

Here's how the project went down:  

Big Rock Trail #693

Thursday August 7th: 

Connor Adams smiles as he drives into an absolute downpour. (He hates the rain.)

At 12 o’ clock on August 7th, Connor and I met two of our volunteers in an intense rain storm at the Kooskia Wilderness Inn. Their names were Jackie and Rod. The Fog Mountain road leading up to the trailhead was not exactly what we expected. The road had been recently graded, so it felt like it was in good enough condition. Jackie was following behind us in a sedan while Rod followed behind her in his truck. As we go up the road, the rain becomes worse. We started to get concerned about Jackie's car's ability to make it and low and behold on a slippery muddy corner, she got stuck. Luckily we are able to tow her out and carry on to leave her car at the corner of the next bend.

The car was aptly named “Freebird”. That thing ripped. As we continued on the road we heard the radio go off saying that there's a weather alert in the area and that NICKEL sized hail was incoming. No kidding. We were off to a good start and these volunteers were so dedicated that they drove through a nickel-sized hail storm to get to camp! 

The plan was to potentially get some work in that afternoon. Setting up camp in the rain and hail was enough for us all to accomplish so we sat and chatted for the next few hours as it dumped on us. 

One of us was brave enough to face the weather, our fifth crew mate Dan. Dan was so motivated to help the trail that he arrived early that day, worked through the rain, and spent the entire day lopping. I am sure that those reading this newsletter have an idea of how difficult loping or clearing brush out of the way of the trail is. Now imagine it in a nickel sized hail storm as you’re volunteering your time. This guy was crazy, in an awesome way. He runs the Hiking North Central Idaho trail group that is looking for volunteers if you’re interested!

Friday August 8th : 

Dan captured this image that showed the fog perfectly from the first morning.

Yay work day one! It was awesome how quickly this crew just felt like a normal, experienced, and positive trail crew. We were all excited to work, curious, and had lots of fun relating about our love for outdoor spaces and trails. The morning was so foggy! It explained the Fog Mountain namesake. 

We got out the crosscuts, axes, and Katana boys and cut 23 logs! It felt so good to be back out there and we could tell as we walked that this trail needed some serious brushing help. 

Connor and Rod taking out a double topped tree with a crosscut. 

Jackie and Dan cutting a log further out of the trail to open it up to those with pack animals. 

Views coming back into camp. 

Jackie on day one— she was stoked to be out on the trail again! 

Saturday August 9th : 

This was our second work day, and to sum it up: we brushed, brushed, and brushed. We would leap-frog around each other to keep moving on the trail and keep where we were working interesting. Connor and Dan also accomplished a lot of drainage work together. 

We really got invested in this trail and wanted to accomplish brushing the whole thing. By the end, everyone agreed we had to have a reunion the next summer to finish what we had started! 

Dan was super amped about clearing the trail of the water that was building up on it. He and Connor spent the first half of the day putting in drainage after drainage. We saw even by the end of the day how much their efforts paid off in drying out the trail. 

An example of the trail brushed out behind us! Trust me, it looked like a jungle before.

Dan working on drainage.

The whole crew working hard at lopping together. 

Me, happy to be here! 

Sunday August 10th: 

Sunday was the celebrated wilderness appreciation day. We hiked out from camp to the top of Big Fog Mountain to get an excellent view of the Selway Crags. It was wonderful to see the views that we did. On our way up we figured out how much we had all learned as we discussed what kind of work we would do on this trail if we had had more time. 

Connor and me at the summit overlooking the Selway Crags! 

Dan and Rod exchanging wilderness stories with quite a view. 

For a short weekend volunteer trip, we accomplished a lot! 

Overall: 

  • We cut 23 logs. 

  • Brushed a mile and a half of trail. 

  • Put in 38 drainages. 

Everyone was excited to work, knew when they needed to take breaks, and had great stories to share about times in the wilderness. When discussing how the trip went, one volunteer said “started out rough, ended up well.” I can't wait to return with the crew and see what other antics the crags bring!

The whole gang appreciated the wilderness after a few good days of work. 

Olivia Hinds lives in Missoula, Montana and works for the University of Montana. She was an SBFC Wilderness Ranger Fellow on the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest in 2023.

Fir Creek Chronicles

Jim Heidelberger

SBFC Board of Directors

Sept. 12-14, 2025

Bear Valley Creek Trail | Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness

I just returned from a wonderful and productive weekend with the SBFC Board of Directors and families.  We gathered at Bear Valley Creek near the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness for our annual work project.  For most of us, this was a long trek, for some close to 6 hours.  Most arrived mid-day on Friday. We worked Friday afternoon, all day on Saturday, and a few diehards went out Sunday morning to get that one last tree; this one a big leaner that would have been impossible for someone on a horse to pass. 

First let’s do the numbers: We cleared about 4½ miles of trail.  More than 130 trees were removed.  Some were small enough to cut with a one-person hand saw.  One-Cut-Kate (Strum) schooled the group on exactly where to cut so we could move the tree from the trail without cutting twice.  Many others required a two-person crosscut.  We did tread work on a couple sections near the beginning of the trail and cleared tons of brush.  As of Sunday noon, the trail from Fir Creek Campground to the hot springs near the confluence of Bear Valley Creek and Marsh Creek was clear. 

The work was hard but gratifying.  But the bigger reward for me was getting to spend time with the dedicated members of the SBFC board.  You get to know people a bit at board meetings.  But when you spend a weekend together in nature, the experience is much richer.  When two people work a crosscut saw together and clear a large tree from the trail, they  are doing the work that SBFC lives for. When you walk back to camp at the end of the day and the trail is clear and easy to traverse, there is a real sense of accomplishment.  And in the interest of full disclosure, I returned to camp earlier in the afternoon than most in an effort to pace myself.

The teamwork throughout the weekend was inspirational. Everyone did what they were capable of doing and helped each other every step of the way.  Together we were able to get some meaningful work done – and have a heck of a lot of fun!

Special thanks to our executive director Ryan Ghelfi for putting this event together and to Martial, an SBFC seasonal staff member who led this project.

Before

After

Jim is an SBFC Board Member (past Board Chair) from Moscow, ID.

Youth Blog: Big Mountains, Big Thoughts on the Upper Selway River

Liam G.

Youth Wilderness Program Participant

July 16-23, 2025

Selway River Trail | Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness

When I signed up for the Big Creek Lake 6-day Youth Expedition in spring last year, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.  Before this experience, I really hadn’t gone more than five or six miles from the nearest road, let alone backpacked into a designated Wilderness area, where things like roads are few and very far between (or just nonexistent).  When my trip wrapped up last summer (2024), I was left wanting nothing more than to have a six-day break and haul that pack right back up into the hills.  

Big L!

One of many card games!

I finished my latest Youth Expedition just over a month ago, joining Abe, Berkeley, and Ian on the Upper Selway River.  And it reminded me, again, of just how amazing, how stunning, and I would go so far as to say how almost supernatural— in its harsh rugged cliffs and grassy meadows stilted with sun-bleached trees— this Wilderness area is.  I learned how to cut retread, got to swing a pulaski again, and got to know my crew, all amazing people.  I swam at the beginning of a river, met a massive bull snake (yes, Big L is real, and I have proof), played an insane amount of cards, and stayed up late watching sparks whirl into the sky like sparrows under the eye of a hawk.  

It was the highlight of my summer. I will never forget the sound of five people hiking with heavy backpacks singing the refrain of “Pepper” by the Butthole Surfers on repeat, nor that of the river as it clashes over rocks and logjams, nor the smell of “hitch-giving” (an Ian tradition) and Annie’s Mac ’n’ Cheese (a Berkeley classic) at the end of the day.  I am extremely grateful to SBFC and to my crew leaders for providing this opportunity to experience these things.  The ability to cut trails and have a deeper appreciation for land stewardship is by far one of the most important skills that I have gained through these experiences.  The opportunity to know the Selway-Bitterroot & Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness is one that I will always remember. 

The youth crew learning from Berkeley

Liam and Kestrel sawing

And this brings me to think of one of the questions that Abe and Berkeley asked us on this trip—do people belong in these Wildernesses?  I believe I said in the moment that, yes, I think that people do belong in this Wilderness.  Yet, as I sat beside the fire that night and thought more of it, I struggled with my conclusion.  People, including myself, will often want to have what they cannot or should not.  We drained the swamps of the midwest to create grids of corn and soy.  We cut more and more trees every day out of the Amazon Rainforest.  The vast majority of Americans live in expansive concrete jungles.  So when an area is set aside to be left untouched by people, the general desire, myself included, is to experience these areas, because they are untouched, untamed, and unwelcoming.  This is why organizations like SBFC are so important.  They keep the trails maintained, and the paths and campsites clear and defined so that people can concentrate their impact on the land to a single area.  Without these organizations, people would wander through the forests, and disturb the life that was blooming in fragile balance.  This is ultimately why I choose to join these expeditions, and this is why the protection and survival of these organizations is so crucial to the protection and survival of these lands.

The more I think on it, the more I keep ending up in the same spot: the experience.  It is the essence of our lives, and what we make of each of ours.  Our experiences are what makes each of us unique as humans.  We will all find ourselves at the end of our road eventually—this is one of the critical things that makes us human, alive, and brings beauty to that life—it’s like they say, ‘it’s not the destination that matters, it’s the journey’.  It’s our experiences, our love, hatred, kindness, spite, the places we go, and the places we want to go, the things we do and do not do—our overall humanity—that is what truly matters at the end of the day.  For me, that’s hiking miles into the mountains and meeting my trail crew.  

Liam and the crew on the trail

Liam is 16 years old and is from Missoula, MT.

The SBFC Youth Wilderness program is made possible by donors and sponsors, including: the National Forest Foundation, the Lightfoot Foundation, Boise Cascade , Bass Pro Shops Outdoor Fund, Weyerhaeuser, Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, J.R. Simplot Company Foundation, Lamb Foundation, Blackfoot Communications, Ravalli Electric Co-op, May Hardware, Missoula Electric Cooperative, Missoula Sentinel Kiwainis, the River Network, the Rapp Family Foundation, the Montana Department of Natural Resources, the Connie Saylor Johnson Wilderness Education Grant, and private donors!

Youth Blog: Boulder Creek Trail

Cecilia L.

Youth Wilderness Program Participant

June 17-22, 2025

Boulder Creek Trail | Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness

The steady sound of the cross-cut sawing through wood stopped, and the dark, grey morning went silent. The clouds hung low and a few raindrops hit my head as I stood up from my seat on the edge of the trail, and went to help my new friends move the freshly cut tree. It was our fourth day in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, and I had started to love it there. On the three mile hike back to our camp, we were spaced out, and so I felt like I was alone walking through the dense foliage of the wilderness, thunder sounding in the distance, and the damp leaves brushing against my pack. The trail finally opened up a little ways before camp, and the peak that towered above us showed itself, covered in low hanging mist. Here, on the trail, with a small weight from the tools strapped to my back, soaking wet jacket and jeans, surrounded by wildflowers and aspen trees and giant rocky peaks, I couldn’t stop smiling. 

Four days ago, I was sitting in my hotel room, ready to go meet the people I would be spending the next week with. I knew absolutely no one, and I had little to no idea on how this week was gonna play out. Now, after steep climbs with what felt like a million pounds on our backs, jumping in freezing cold rivers and lakes, card games, clearing trees, late night talks, and adventures around the campsite, the people who had previously been total strangers were now my little group of friends. The last few days had been hard work, but the jokes of my friends, the encouraging words of our two amazing leaders, and the beautiful scenery around me made it impossible to have a negative thought. Being there, standing in front of the mountains and dark storm fronts, surrounded by my friends, and knowing I just helped clear miles of wilderness trail was the best feeling. I never wanted to leave. I’m so glad that I had that experience with SBFC, and I would love to do it again.

Cecilia is 16 years old, from Boise, Idaho.

The SBFC Youth Wilderness program is made possible by donors and sponsors, including: the National Forest Foundation, the Lightfoot Foundation, Boise Cascade , Bass Pro Shops Outdoor Fund, Weyerhaeuser, Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, J.R. Simplot Company Foundation, Lamb Foundation, Blackfoot Communications, Ravalli Electric Co-op, May Hardware, Missoula Electric Cooperative, Missoula Sentinel Kiwainis, the River Network, the Rapp Family Foundation, the Montana Department of Natural Resources, the Connie Saylor Johnson Wilderness Education Grant, and private donors!

Youth Wilderness Vlog

April Eling

Youth Wilderness Expedition Leader

W Fork Camas Creek Trail #4128

Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness

April chose to make a video blog about her work as SBFC’s Youth Wilderness Expedition Leader. Check it out!

April Eling, Youth Wilderness Expedition Leader

April grew up in Eastern Kentucky. After graduating high school, she moved to Utah and spent a year with a conservation corps doing trail work, invasive species removal, and more. She then spent four years as a wildland firefighter with the Forest Service in Arizona, California, and Montana. Next, she went back to Kentucky to get a degree in Natural Resources and work as a backcountry ranger. She graduated in spring 2024 and moved to Missoula to work for SBFC as a crew leader. After an inspiring season, she is returning in 2025 to lead our Youth Expeditions hitches. She loves Wilderness because it represents nature in its truest form and provides mental and physical well-being to all who access it. She is passionate about maintaining these places for ecological health and access for all people.

The SBFC Youth Wilderness program is made possible by donors and sponsors, including: the National Forest Foundation, the Lightfoot Foundation, Boise Cascade , Bass Pro Shops Outdoor Fund, Weyerhaeuser, Laura Moore Cunningham Foundation, J.R. Simplot Company Foundation, Lamb Foundation, Blackfoot Communications, Ravalli Electric Co-op, May Hardware, Missoula Electric Cooperative, Missoula Sentinel Kiwainis, the River Network, the Rapp Family Foundation, the Montana Department of Natural Resources, the Connie Saylor Johnson Wilderness Education Grant, and private donors!

Whispers on the Breeze

Mary Schneider

Wilderness Ranger Fellow

Summer 2025

During the 4-day drive from Tampa to Missoula at the start of my season, I passed the time imagining myself out in the field, wielding saws and swinging axes, caked in dirt, rain, blood and sweat. I saw myself barreling down trails and letting out summit war cries. These imaginings were, however, constantly interrupted by stops for gas and my feeble attempts to keep my blood flowing. Breaking a sweat after a handful of push-ups never fails to keep me humble. Although I am confident in the functionality of my strength, physical finesse and spatial awareness generally fall low on the list of things I am proud of. This is precisely why I found myself on that drive to Missoula: I felt called to Montana and to SBFC because I knew that there were lessons to be learned out here. It offered an opportunity to level up, in a sense.

Mary with a crosscut!

In my training at Powell Ranger Station, I knew that I had come to the right place. The tools and the tasks felt thrillingly foreign and intimidating, and I came home to camp each day breathless in anticipation for the next. At night, chatting over dinner in the yurt, the other fellows expressed such joy about being dirty and working hard that it filled my heart and caught me off guard. At my past job in the Florida marsh, everyone did revel in the slop but expressed it only sarcastically. Here in the Selway, everyone wore their dirt and sweat with unfiltered pride. Inspired as I was by this, I still deep-cleaned myself every night and wondered anxiously about what my sleeping bag might smell and feel like on showerless day 7 of hitch.

On my first couple of hitches, we lopped and dug the days away and camped by rushing rivers and creeks at night. The gift of the cold, refreshing water at the end of the day made the time seem to pass so comfortably. My nervous energy was quickly redirected to the trails we were working and the way we couldn’t seem to make it to the end in time. I expressed this to one of my crew leads, Noah, and he gave me the advice that trail work is just about making a dent. There will always be more trees and more tread and more trail, and even when you think you’ve cleared it, another tree will fall tomorrow. All you can do is the best you can do.

Tents at camp

This advice carried me through the middle of my season, especially my fourth hitch. I spent multiple entire days working just one enormous tree, took detours and climbed the wrong mountain, choked on a constant cloud of mosquitoes and marinated in my freezing cold, forever-wet gear.  We were tasked with 20 miles of trail but moved 8, and it took everything in me to fight off the brutal discouragement. I reminded myself of the dent we made and focused on the fact that the next crew would have easier work on that stretch because of us.

On my most recent hitch, my final one, I got to help lead a youth crew in the Frank. It was a challenging hitch for everyone, including myself. We bumped camp multiple times deep into the wilderness, and the difficulty sometimes seemed to overwhelm the trail work. The kids expressed disappointment in themselves, saying that they wished we could’ve made it to the end of the trail, wished the cuts would go faster, that things would just work better. So, I tried to pass on the same perspective that Noah had enforced to me. It’s important to want to finish and improve, but rather than carry the disruptive weight of discouragement, allow yourself to be lifted and propelled by the progress you’ve made. 

Mary with SBFC’s Youth Expedition Leader, April, and youth program participants

My final hitch with the youth granted me a lot of time and prompting for reflection. In the youth, I saw myself in training at Powell. I heard the same lessons reiterated to their fresh ears, saw in them both the hesitancy and raw eagerness that I’m sure my instructors saw in me, too. I was surprised by how distant I felt from that training. Only in the position of teacher did I realize how confident I had become in comparison.

I then thought about my drive to Missoula, and the person and worker I thought I’d be by now. I certainly am no unstoppable force – in truth I crawled to the end of my season with a thrown-out back and a burnout head cold – but nonetheless I completed the season. It doesn’t matter that I needed heroic doses of ibuprofen at the end, because I genuinely relished in the squish of my boots under rain, hail, and creek crossings. I forgive myself for the tears of frustration I shed during my fifth hour of non-stop katana boy, because I kept sawing. I don’t care that I’m not the ripped lumberjack I saw in my dreams because what I lost in body mass, I gained in tolerance of pain and discomfort.

Wild-harvested berries

I know I am leaving many lessons still unlearned out here, but I am so proud of how far I’ve come. I am so grateful for the beautiful, pure thing that I got to be a part of this summer. I had never been around so many incredible, strong, scrappy dirtbags in my life, and I feel so lucky to have crossed this path. Although the wind now blows me elsewhere, I hope I stay downwind of this place for a long time. May the laughter of the crews, the sweetness of the sagebrush, and the hum of the crosscut forever come to me in whispers on the breeze.

Mary Schneider

Tampa, FL

University of Florida- Environmental Science

Mary grew up in the city in Tampa, Florida, where her love for the outdoors was nurtured by backyard oaks and rocky runoff creeks. In college, she studied environmental sciences, and the distant mysticism of the natural world became tangible. Her work as a research tech sent her to conduct experiments deep in the mud of the marsh, under the Salish Sea, and across African savannas. She also joined her school’s backpacking club, which led her to climb mountains and explore the backcountry with new friends and strangers. She has come a long way from her backyard, and is very excited to experience wilderness in a new way on the trail crew!