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Songscape is an ongong collaboration between the USFS and various musicians. This year, the project featured the Roosevelt National Forest and the local musical group The Burroughs. During the project, PWV was asked to participate by conducting a patrol with band members. The music video was released in conjunction with National Public Lands Day, and includes the song Step Into the Music composed for this project as well as beautiful videography of the forest. You can click HERE to see this YouTube video celebrating public lands.
Songscape’s wish is "to make sure the Roosevelt National Forest belongs to the people forever!" Click HERE to see Songcscape: Roosevelt National Forest website.
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Since 2012 PWV has assisted the Canyon Lakes Ranger District in restoring its trails after they were damaged first by the High Park fire and then the flood of 2013. During the flood and fire seven of the District trails were seriously damaged. Three of these trails were closed to the public for two years or more. The North Fork trail, near Glen Haven, was rebuilt by PWV and Forest Service personnel over a two-year period and is now open to the public. During the trail restoration period 1.5 miles of new trail was built and another 3/4 mile was repaired. A puncheon, a log stringer bridge and a large plank bridge were built. Over 5,000 volunteer hours were spent to restore this trail. The Lion Gulch Trail has also been extensively worked on in the past three years. It is now completed and was opened to the public this past year. This trail has one new bridge and over a mile of new trail with another mile repaired.
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Poudre Wilderness Volunteers (PWV) is a Larimer County, Colorado nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1996 to assist the Canyon Lakes Ranger District of the United States Forest Service in managing and protecting the wilderness and backcountry areas within its jurisdiction. To achieve this mission, PWV recruits, trains, equips, and fields citizen volunteers to serve as wilderness rangers and hosts for the purpose of educating the public, and provides other appropriate support to these wild areas.
PWV has grown substantially and diversified since its founding and is considered to be one of the largest, most effective organizations of its kind in the nation.
The Need
- Federal appropriations for the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are not sufficient to cover the costs of forest management and conservation. Furthermore, the USFS doesn’t have enough staff to adequately patrol and monitor the Wilderness and backcountry trails in our area.
- Backcountry use continues to rise, reflecting population growth and demographic changes along the Front Range and elsewhere in the nation. A recent National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (2000 – 2007) indicates that participation in outdoor recreation activities increased by 25 - 31% and that Americans’ interest in nature and nature-based recreation is changing. While activities such as hiking, backpacking, horse riding, mountain climbing, and snow skiing have recently shown declines in popularity, viewing or photographing birds, wildlife, and flowers and trees have increased by 19 to 26%, and kayaking has increased by 63%. In 2010, the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests were visited by 6 million people, the second highest number of visits to a National Forest in the nation.
- Many backcountry users have no idea what a designated Wilderness is or why it must be left “untrammeled" by man. A majority of them know very little about low-impact camping. If there is nobody to inform visitors about appropriate Wilderness use, some of our Wilderness areas could become so heavily impacted that additional restrictions on public use will be imposed.