Annie Creek added to Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness

October 17, 2025-

The Payette Land Trust and Wilderness Land Trust partnered to purchase a 94-acre private inholding within Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness in August 2024, safeguarding Annie Creek from development. This property was recently transferred into public ownership, adding it to the designated wilderness area.

The Annie Creek property is located near the western edge of the wilderness area, approximately 40 miles from McCall, Idaho. Surrounded by the steep, forested terrain characteristic of the Frank Church, the property includes gentler slopes, creeks, wetlands, and flat building sites, which were used in the early 1900s during Idaho’s mining boom. Located near a well-maintained road, the property was particularly vulnerable to development. Private inholdings within designated wilderness areas carry none of the protections of the surrounding wilderness and can be developed with cabins, resorts, or even industrial sites. The threat of development was removed when the two land trusts, with generous support from the Leuthold Foundation, purchased the inholding from a private owner. Now in public hands, Annie Creek will enjoy the highest level of protection available to public lands as designated wilderness, which can only be altered by an act of Congress, not through executive order or administration directive.

At 2.3 million acres, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness is the largest wilderness area in the lower 48 states and is home to over 180 miles of the free-flowing Salmon River. Its large, connected habitats are rich in biodiversity with over 280 species of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. The addition of the Annie Creek property to the wilderness area will help protect important wildlife habitat and strengthen connectivity across the landscape.

“Idaho is changing at a rapid rate which requires voluntary partnerships between private landowners, organizations and foundations to conserve Idaho’s natural beauty. We are proud to work with The Wilderness Land Trust and the Leuthold Foundation to conserve this unique landscape into the future”

-Payette Land Trust Executive Director, Craig Utter

“Thanks to our partnerships with the Payette Land Trust and the Leuthold Foundation, this special place will be protected for future generations to enjoy in one of America’s most iconic wilderness areas”

-The Wilderness Land Trust President, Brad Borst

In the organization’s 33-year history, The Wilderness Land Trust has worked to keep the promise of wilderness by acquiring these private inholdings from willing landowners and transferring them to federal ownership to become designated wilderness. In this time, the Trust has purchased and transferred 614 properties totaling over 59,000 acres from Arizona to Alaska, completing 18 wilderness areas by removing their last remaining private inholdings. With each transfer, we come one step closer to completing the vision of the Wilderness Act. Learn more at www.wildernesslandtrust.org.

Payette Land Trust (PLT) works to conserve the wild and working lands of West Central Idaho by partnering with private landowners, communities, and conservation organizations to balance conservation and development. PLT currently owns or holds conservation easements on 21 properties totaling 3,891 acres across Adams, Idaho, Valley, and Washington counties. Through projects like the Annie Creek partnership, PLT advances its mission of voluntary, community-based conservation for the benefit of current and future generations. Learn more at www.payettelandtrust.org.

960 acres protected in California’s Bodie Hills

October 3, 2025-

Where the high peaks of the eastern Sierra and Yosemite National Park meet the sagebrush steppe, the Bodie Hills of California remain one of the state’s most ecologically intact landscapes with some of its highest biodiversity. Here The Wilderness Land Trust recently acquired a 960-acre property adjoining the Granite Mountain Wilderness area, removing a significant threat of development from this important landscape.

The Granite Mountain North property was purchased from private owners who had plans for residential development on it. With a road already built and well drilled on the property, the risk of development was well on its way. But over the course of seven years, the Trust worked with the landowners to find a different path forward for the property, completing the purchase of it last month. With the almost thousand-acre property now conserved, we have ensured its habitat for sage grouse and wild horses, as well as raptor nesting sites will be protected. Beyond the boundaries of the property itself, this acquisition helps maintain a buffer around the designated wilderness area, also benefiting its habitat, wildlife migration corridors, and scenic viewsheds.

Standing on the Granite Mountain North property with open views across the Bodie Hills and Mono Lake you can point to several other Wilderness Land Trust projects on horizon. With your support we have now protected around 8,000 acres in total in the area, stitching together a fragmented patchwork of public and private lands into a more unified and protected landscape.

Public access protected as the Weminuche Wilderness grows

September 19, 2025-

Earlier this summer the Trust transferred our 30-acre Needle Creek property, adding it to the Weminuche Wilderness. Last week we built off that momentum, transferring our 31-acre Great Western Lode properties to also be added to the Weminuche, once again growing Colorado’s largest wilderness area.

The Great Western Lode project is made up of three properties totaling 31 acres. Located about five miles north of the Needle Creek project, they protect fragile alpine tundra habitat. Like the Needle Creek project, the addition of Great Western Lode to the wilderness area secures public access on a popular trail. The 9.3-mile Whitehead Trail runs through two of the project’s three properties, and connects the Continental Divide Trail to the Highland Mary Trail and Deer Park Trails, which are easily accessible from the town of Silverton, Colorado, a year-round recreation destination.

All but 6 acres of Great Western Lode will be added to designated wilderness, enjoying the highest level of protection available to public lands that can only be altered by an act of Congress, not executive orders or other administration directives. The remaining 6 acres, which extends outside of the established wilderness boundary, will be added to San Juan National Forest to be managed as wilderness.

With the transfer of Great Western Lode, the Trust has protected a total of 15 properties covering over 265 acres in the Weminuche Wilderness.

Protecting bat habitat in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness

September 5, 2025-

Given that many of the private wilderness inholdings that we work to protect are old mining claims, it’s not uncommon to find open mine shafts or adits, the horizontal passages used to access underground mines, on them. When we do, it is important to close them off before the property becomes public lands to ensure public safety. Our staff recently visited our Annie Creek project in Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, which we acquired in last year in partnership with the Payette Land Trust, to close two open adits on the property. But how that’s done has a big impact on one of wilderness’s little thought of, but most important species: bats.

There are at least 13 species of bats in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. A single little brown bat, one of the most common species found there, can consume over 1,200 mosquito-sized insects in just one hour. If you’ve ever tried to put up a tent or cook your dinner while camping in the thick of mosquito season, that alone may be enough to convince you of the importance of bats in the wilderness. But bats are also critical for healthy forests, protecting young trees from insect damage. Researchers have found that forest where bats are present have three times less insects and five times less defoliation of young trees than forests without bats. When young saplings are defoliated, having their leaves eaten by insects, they are more vulnerable to stressors like drought and fungal diseases. Beyond playing an important pest control role in forests, bats eat enough pests so save more than $3 billion a year in crop damage and pesticide costs across US agricultural production. Bats are also important pollinators. But due to disease and habitat loss, bat populations are in decline across the country.

While many species of bats actually roost in trees, habitat like caves and abandoned mines are important for reproduction and raising their young. So when it comes to closing off mine adits on the Trust’s properties, we make sure that they are still accessible to bats. Sometimes, when the property is easily accessible, that means installing steel bars or grates across the opening. In Colorado, the Division of Reclamation, Mining, & Safety has a program to help install these grates, but no such program exists in Idaho. In the case of Annie Creek, where steel grates would be too heavy to hike in, we had custom cable nets fabricated to stretch across the roughly 5×7’ opening and bolt into the rocks surrounding them. Quarter inch cables are used to create a six-inch square mesh, ensuring bats can easily fly through them.

Our staff were joined by two of our local USFS partners, and we were able to hike in all the materials and install both nets in just one day, instead of the two we had anticipated it would take. This kind of stewardship and restoration is an important part of our work, both to ensure that properties are cared for after we acquire them, and to return them to their wilderness character and mitigate any safety hazards before they become wilderness and public lands.

 

Catching up with an old friend: Lundy Canyon

August 22, 2025-

 

This summer, while working on projects in the nearby Bodie Hills, our staff had the opportunity to catch up with an old friend, our Lundy Canyon project, to see what successful protection of this once-vulnerable property looks like three years after it transferred to public ownership.

Today nothing separates the property from the surrounding Hoover wilderness. But that wasn’t always a given: a private buyer who wanted to put a permanent houseboat development on the small alpine lake was under contract to buy the property. That’s when The Wilderness Land Trust, with the help of our partners at the Mono Lake Committee and Eastern Sierra Land Trust, stepped in to purchase the property and eventually transfer it to public ownership.

Check out this short video to learn more about the project and see the lasting impact of your support.

 

Public Access to Achenbach Canyon Protected

August 8, 2025-

In southern New Mexico, the Organ Mountains Wilderness covers just shy of 20,000 acres of varied habitat, from the lower elevation Chihuahuan Desert to the rugged Organ Mountains, named for their rock spires resembling organ pipes. Located just miles from Las Cruces, New Mexico’s second largest city, the wilderness area and surrounding Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument provide varied recreation opportunities along with diverse wildlife habitat.

In 2021 The Wilderness Land Trust purchased 111 acres of private property adjoining the wilderness area at the mouth of Achenbach Canyon. The project protects public access to the popular 5.5-mile trail that follows the canyon up the flanks of the peaks above, connecting it to the Sierra Vista Trailhead. Working with our partners at the Bureau of Land Management, we recently completed the transfer of the property to public ownership through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF).

LWCF uses revenue from offshore oil and gas leases to fund conservation and recreation projects across the country, from acquiring properties in and around wilderness areas, like the Achenbach Canyon project, to building parks and playgrounds.

Senator Heinrich (NM), who visited the Achenbach Canyon property with the Trust and our partners after it was acquired in 2021, celebrates the project for improving public access: “Five years ago, we passed the Great American Outdoors Act and permanently funded the LWCF. Today, we’re seeing the results: the Achenbach Canyon property is now public land—thanks to LWCF Recreation Access funds. Improving access to OUR public lands is exactly why we fought for it. I’m grateful to the Wilderness Land Trust and Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks for their partnership and hard work in expanding New Mexicans’ access to public lands with this win.”

Satellite images from February 1996 and June 2025 showing development surrounding the Achenbach Canyon project (outlined in red). Images from Google Earth.

Over the last 30 years Las Cruces has doubled in population, and the area surrounding the Achenbach Canyon project has infilled with residential development. Protecting the property as public lands will ensure that public access is preserved and corridors of connected habitat are maintained for wildlife migration between the wilderness area and national monument.

Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks was an invaluable partner in making the Achenbach Canyon project a success: “Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks are elated to hear that Achenbach Canyon will now be in public hands. Access to this stunning area of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument has been a top priority for the organization. We wish to thank the Wilderness Land Trust and the BLM Las Cruces office for their commitment to this project and hard work to get this done. This project is a great example as to why the Land and Water Conservation Fund is such a vital tool for communities working to promote access to public lands. Achenbach is a jewel of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and this will ensure access for generations to come” says Patrick Nolan, Executive Director.

Representative Vasquez (NM) voices his support of the project, emphasizing the role of the local community: “This acquisition of the Achenbach Canyon Trail in Las Cruces is a significant win for all of us who cherish the Organ Mountains and the beautiful landscape that is right in our backyard. The transfer of this 111 acres opens up public access to one of the best recreation opportunities in our national monument. This was driven by the local community and groups like the Friends of the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks, and it is exactly the kind of progress I’ve been advocating for as a leader of the bipartisan Public Lands Caucus in Congress.”

Senator Luján (NM) also praises the project for benefiting local outdoor recreation and the tourism economy: “In the face of today’s unprecedented attacks on our public lands, it’s great to see public access to Achenbach Canyon protected.  Ensuring that our growing Las Cruces community has access to this special place is a win-win for outdoor recreation and our tourism economy.  Thank you to The Wilderness Land Trust, the Friends of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, and all who have supported the Land and Water Conservation Fund to make public protections like these a reality.”

Achenbach Canyon is the 26th property protected by The Wilderness Land Trust in New Mexico, totaling 4,900 acres.  The Trust also acquired another 98-acre property located north of Achenbach Canyon in 2020, which we are still working to transfer to public ownership.

Washington’s Wild Sky Wilderness grows with transfer of 15 properties

July 25, 2025-

About an hour east of Seattle, the Wild Sky Wilderness spans over 100,000 acres of roaring streams and high peaks. In addition to the ecological importance of it’s temperate rainforests, salmon spawning grounds and alpine habitat, the Wild Sky Wilderness provides close-to-home recreation opportunities for Seattle’s 4 million residents.

The Trust recently completed the transfer of a package of 15 properties totaling 655 acres to public ownership. Located in and near the Silver Creek drainage, we acquired these properties between 2019 and 2024, and have diligently been working with our agency partners to transfer them since. Because the properties are concentrated in one area, we were able to bundle them together into one package, and navigate the transfer process more efficiently. We are working to replicate this strategy in other wilderness areas as well.

Of properties, 540 acres will become designated wilderness and enjoy the strongest protections available for public lands in the US. The other 115 acres will be added to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest with the possibility of becoming designated wilderness in the future, thanks to the provisions of the 2008 Wild Sky Wilderness Act which created the wilderness area.

This transfer represents a major milestone in our work in the North Cascades ecosystem, and years of hard work by our lands staff and partners. With it we have helped to consolidate protection in the patchwork of ownership through this part of the wilderness area. But the threat still remains: about 1/4 of Washington’s remaining wilderness inholdings are in the Wild Sky Wilderness, and another 1/2 are in the adjacent Henry M Jackson Wilderness. Thanks to donors like you, we will continue working with willing landowners to acquire and protect these remaining vulnerable lands.

We’re hiring!

July 11, 2025-

After nine years at the helm, Brad Borst will be leaving the Trust later this year. So we have begun the search for our next Executive Director.

The ideal candidate will join a mission-driven organization with deep roots and proven impact, leading strategic initiatives that balance conservation urgency with practical partnership development. The role demands someone who combines a deep passion for wilderness protection with strong nonprofit leadership experience, fundraising, and financial acumen, as well as the vision to broaden the Trust’s appeal while working hands-on with a high-performing team dedicated to securing the highest level of protection available for America’s public lands.

Please help us spread the news by sharing with friends and colleagues in the conservation world.

Learn more here.

Join us in welcoming Tim Northrop to our board of directors!

July 11, 2025-

Tim is the Senior Director of Development at the California Polytechnic State University’s College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences. He is an experienced leader in nonprofit and higher education fundraising, land conservation, project management, and creating strategic initiatives and programs that have high impact. As the Connecticut State Director for the Trust for Public Land, Tim partnered with federal, state, and local governments and land trusts to conserve open space and working lands and create new parks.

Tim earned his bachelor’s degree in human biology from Stanford University and a Master of Environmental Management from the Yale School of the Environment where he researched transboundary peace parks. He was also a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs, and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa.

“I am excited to join TWLT’s board of directors to help ensure that present and future generations can connect with nature in real and meaningful ways and lead us to become better stewards of the planet” says Tim.

In addition to serving on the WLT board, he is a board member of the Environmental Leadership Program which supports emerging environmental leaders. Tim is an avid hiker, cyclist, and runner. When he’s not raising money for natural resources management and environmental science, you’ll find him on a trail or gravel road in the hills of San Luis Obispo.

Public access protected as the Weminuche Wilderness grows

June 25, 2025-

Earlier this year we shared the news that we had acquired a 30-acre private inholding in the Weminuche Wilderness of southern Colorado. Now we are thrilled to announce that the property has been transferred to public ownership to be protected as designated wilderness.

Running through the property are both Needle Creek and the Needle Creek Trail, which is used by hikers and climbers to access the very popular Chicago Basin and its surrounding 14,000+ peaks. With flat, buildable stream-side sites, the property was previously at risk of development. Now protected, public access on the trail to Chicago Basin has been ensured for future generations to enjoy. Needle Creek is an important tributary to the Animas River. This water source, along with vibrant aspen groves that stretch from the creek up the slopes of the Needle Mountains, create habitat for a wide range of wildlife. The Needle Creek property scores high for climate change resilience, biodiversity, and landscape connectivity, all important conservation values that will be protected as wilderness.

At just shy of half a million acres, the Weminuche Wilderness is the largest in Colorado. Spanning the continental divide, with an average elevation of over 10,000 feet, its rugged terrain provides important alpine habitat. Needle Creek is the 15th property protected by the Trust in the wilderness area, and builds off the success of the nearby 7-acre Emerald Lake property that the Trust acquired in 2018 and transferred to be added to the wilderness area in 2023.

While the property is now protected as wilderness, we will continue working with the USFS to complete some remaining restoration work this summer, removing the remnants of a hunting camp left by a previous owner. We are encouraged to see transfers of property like Needle Creek still moving forward under the new administration, and are grateful for our wonderful partners at the San Juan National Forest and Region 2 USFS office for working so diligently to move this project through the transfer process.