The Aspen Daily News celebrates the Trust’s recent acquisition of the 275-acre Champion Mine South property just outside the Mount Massive Wilderness.
December 1, 2023
October 20, 2023-
With autumn leaves turning and the first frosts greeting the dawn, it won’t be long before the snow drives many of us indoors from our favorite wilderness trails. To celebrate the start of this cozy season we’re excited to introduce our new Wilderness Book Club!
Every other month we’ll select a book, non-fiction or fiction, that explores wilderness, conservation, wildlife, and adventure from a wide range of voices. You can read along and send us your thoughts and reflections about the book which we’ll share on the website for the rest of the club. You can also send us your book recommendations!
October Wilderness Book Club Pick:The Wolverine Way
by Douglas H. Chadwick
The wolverine comes marked with a reputation based on myth and fancy. Yet this enigmatic animal is more complex than the legends that surround it. With a shrinking wilderness and global warming, the future of the wolverine is uncertain. The Wolverine Way reveals the natural history of this species and the forces that threaten its future, engagingly told by Douglas Chadwick, a biologist with the Glacier Wolverine Project.
This month’s pick was recommended by Margosia, our Director of Marketing & Communications: “I first read The Wolverine Way a few winters ago after leading some bear-aware programs with the author Doug Chadwick. All that winter while out skiing, especially in Glacier NP, I annoyed my family and friends with constant wolverine facts and stories from it. I couldn’t help it though, the book was so interesting!”
Send us your thoughts and reflections on The Wolverine Way by December 18th
Share the Wilderness Book Club with your reader friends and have them sign up for our email newsletter to hear about the latest book picks.
October 6, 2023-
When asked what wilderness is, many people will quote some portion of the 1964 Wilderness Act’s definition of “A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” For many of us who have spent time in wilderness, developing our own personal relationships with it, our definitions will also cross into how we have experienced wilderness, how we love to explore it, or how it makes us feel.
In the Trust’s work to protect wilderness, we often refer to wilderness character in terms of how development of an inholding would affect the wilderness character of the lands around it, or how we will work to restore lands to their wilderness character before they are transferred to public ownership. It’s a term that is often used as a catch-all for everything from ecosystem health to solitude. But the Wilderness Act actually goes on to define wilderness character with five tangible and measurable characteristics:
Beyond defining these wilderness characteristics, the law also sets a requirement for the managing agency to maintain or improve these characteristics in a wilderness area from the time of its designation forward. In the last 15 or 20 years a standardized system for monitoring and evaluating wilderness characteristics has been developed. For each of these characteristics is a set of indicators that can be assessed for a negative change, no change, or positive change for an area year after year. These indicators range from actions authorized by the federal land manager that intentionally manipulate the biophysical environment for untrammeled character, to human-caused change to air or water quality for natural character, to the presence of inholdings for undeveloped character. Observing trends in these indicators can help to identify stewardship needs and successes.
For the vast majority of wilderness visitors, these indicators fade into their overall experience of wilderness. We may notice signs of their change like new fire rings popping up along popular backpacking routes through the years, or our phones pinging for the first time with incoming messages as we enter a new patch of cell service on a familiar trail. But it is how wilderness exists outside of our experiences of it, in our absence, that is really at the heart of its character. It is what is left behind when we, the visitors, go: the ecological integrity, free flow of natural cycles, and the existence of a few last corners of the earth not shaped and controlled by human civilization.
Learning more about wilderness character monitoring here.
September 22, 2023-
The Trust recently completed the transfer of a 7.5-acre property on the slopes above Emerald Lake in the heart of Colorado’s Weminuche Wilderness. The project builds on two adjacent properties which the Trust already transferred into public ownership to be added to the wilderness area in 2020.
You may have heard of Emerald Lake as a popular backpacking destination in the Weminuche Wilderness. If you have, it’s almost certainly another Emerald Lake. Somewhat confusingly there are two named Emerald Lakes in the wilderness area (plus a Little Emerald Lake), and while both are accurately named for their emerald green waters, they are quite different. The Emerald Lake you may know is an hour’s drive and ten-mile hike from the small city of Durango. Sitting at 10,000 feet it is the third largest natural lake in Colorado and attracts backpackers ranging from solo hikers to families to groups of Boy and Girl Scouts. Local outfitters also guide horse packing trips to a site just above the lake. Generations of wilderness visitors have come to camp along Emerald Lake, some on their first backcountry tip, to see the vivid Milky Way reflected in its still waters, to listen to great horned owls calling through the treetops, and to watch the sun rise over the eastern ridge.
A backpacker at the popular Emerald Lake (Photo by Alex Gulsby from VisitDurango.org)
The Emerald Lake of the Trust’s recent transfer is some 13 miles west of the popular Emerald Lake and is 3% of the size. This Emerald Lake sits just above treeline at 11,300 feet and is surrounded by fragile alpine tundra. It’s about a mile and 1,500 ft climb through a dense drainage from the nearest trail and attracts very few and only the most intrepid of wilderness visitors. Alpine lakes like this serve as important biodiversity hotspots in the harsh high-elevation environment. The Trust’s work to protect even small properties in these areas conserves habitat for wildlife and rare plants like Heil’s Tansy Mustard.
The ‘other’ Emerald Lake viewed from the Trust’s recently transferred property
While very different, both Emerald Lakes play important roles in our national wilderness landscape. We need wild places where families can go to unplug and explore together, just as we need wild places void of popular trails and campsites where wildlife can move unencumbered by human presence. Visitation to our National Forests increased by more than 20 million between 2016 and 2019 and skyrocketed by another 18 million from just 2019 to 2020. This trend was even more pronounced in wilderness areas where visitation almost doubled in 2020 after four years of minimal growth. These statistics represent many more people, and more diverse people, having the opportunity for life-changing wilderness experiences for the first time. And that’s something to celebrate in its own right. But it can also put a strain on natural resources and managing agencies. In 2021 USFS crews picked up 397 contractor-sized trash bags of garbage in the Columbine Ranger District, where the Weminuche Wilderness is located, showing the need for education to teach all visitors, whether it is their first visit or hundredth visit, how to recreate responsibly and leave no trace.
Growing visitation also shows how important it is to protect places like the ‘other’ Emerald Lake from threats of development. Our work to protect these places, largely unknown and unglamorous in the public eye, is critical in balancing the needs of wilderness landscapes and ensuring a refuge for nature and nature alone.
September 8, 2023- Last month the Trust’s Vice President and Senior Lands Specialist Aimee Rutledge visited two of our project sites in the Chuck River and Kootznoowoo Wilderness Areas of southeast Alaska. Join us on a virtual site visit with this 4-minute video to learn more about the projects and one of America’s most important forests!
SF Gate celebrates the Trust’s recent purchase of the 160-acre Church Creek property in the Ventana Wilderness of California.
August 29, 2023
The San Francisco Chronicle celebrates the Trust’s recent purchase of the 160-acre Church Creek property in the Ventana Wilderness of California.
August 26, 2023
The Idaho Capital Sun celebrates the recent addition of the Surprise Lode property to Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.
August 26, 2023
August 25, 2023- Our wilderness community recently lost a dear member with the passing of John Fielder on August 11, 2023 at the age of 73. Based in Colorado, John was a renowned nature photographer. His work captured the beauty of the wild landscapes he loved and worked to protect throughout his life.
John served as chair of The Wilderness Land Trust’s board of directors for 10 years and was a generous supporter for many more.
“Humanity will not survive without the preservation of biodiversity on Earth, and I have been honored to use my photography to influence people and legislation to protect our natural and rural environments,” John said. Earlier this year he donated some 6,000 photographs, his life’s work, to the public domain. Our thoughts are with John’s family and friends.
August 25, 2023
This week The Wilderness Land Trust completed the purchase of 160 acres in the Ventana Wilderness of California.
In the heart of California’s Central Coast, the 160-acre Church Creek property overlooks the wild sharp-crested ridges and steep valleys of the interior coastal range. The property connects to over 2,000,000 acres of public lands that provide critical wildlife habitat in the middle of a biodiversity hotspot. With several streams, the Church Creek property maintains important habitat resources for resident and migrating species in this dry landscape. The property also provides public access with a trailhead connecting two popular trails.
The property was owned by the San Francisco Zen Center in connection to its nearby Tassajara Mountain Zen Center. Together the San Francisco Zen Center and The Wilderness Land Trust have ensured the threat of development is removed, and the property will become public lands for all to enjoy.
“There’s an old Zen saying: ‘If I take care of the mountains, they will take care of us.’ We share this quality of intimate connection with nature with the Wilderness Land Trust, and we deeply appreciate the protection and care this land will continue receiving in the future.”
– Sozan Miglioli, President of San Francisco Zen Center
With incredible vistas, flat building sites, and access via a public road, the Church Creek property would have been at high risk of development had it sold to a private buyer. The next step for this property is to be transferred to Los Padres National Forest. With over 2,000 acres of private inholdings remaining in the Ventana Wilderness, there is still more work to be done. But for now, thanks to the San Francisco Zen Center’s vision and the support of our donors and partners, there are 160 fewer acres at risk.
