Crews of Boy Scouts work to solve Teton Pass problems

Friday, August 08, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Last Thursday afternoon, a crew of Boy Scouts stood on top of Teton Pass, their faces caked in dirt and sweat, hard hats on their heads and ice cream sandwiches in their hands.

“Hey, guys, just seconds, not thirds,” Stephanie Thomas from Friends of Pathways announced as some of the Scouts tried to push their luck and score another ice cream sandwich or push-up pop. After a full day of trail building in dusty Teton soil, these Scouts were waiting for a bus to take them back to a tent city shared with about 700 other Scouts at the Jackson Hole High School.

Thomas was handing out ice cream as a thank you for what would have been 10 or so years worth of volunteer labor that her group and others would have had to organize in order to complete the four trail-building projects on Teton Pass that hundreds of Boy Scouts have just finished. The now-complete improvements had been in the works for four years, after Friends of Pathways, the Forest Service, and Teton Freedom Riders teamed up to solve concerns about a need for new trails on the pass.

“In 2004, we were seeing recreation use increasing rapidly on Teton pass … particularly a lot of downhill biking,” Linda Merigliano from Bridger Teton National Forest said. “There was a lot of concern generally about safety issues and about collisions between people using the trails, particularly between people on mountain bikes and horses. And there was also concern about unauthorized trail construction going on.”

Those concerns, she said, led to the collaborative effort to find a trail plan that could accommodate all users.
But no one knew at the time that the problem solving process would so serendipitously coincide with a Boy Scout service organization’s desire to commence its largest service project ever.

The Order of the Arrow (OA) is a special service-oriented group of Boy Scouts. A large-scale service project conducted by a Minnesota OA group drew the attention of the national OA office, which was inspired to undertake a large-scale national project that would bring some 1,000 Boy Scouts to five different National Forests across the nation. The Scouts were assigned to large-scale work projects for those forests.

When the National Forest Service called for submissions from forests around the country to host and benefit from these projects, Bridger Teton put in an application asking for the trail work on the pass, as well as habitat and migration corridor restoration in the Gros Ventre Range. The BTNF also requested invasive species management off Fall Creek Road. The forest’s proposals were one out of 13 from across the country submitted. In the end, only five were chosen, including BTNF’s projects.

The Boy Scouts chose the Bridger Teton’s proposal because Jackson had the infrastructure needed to host the large number of Boy Scouts. BTNF also satisfied the National Forest Service’s priorities of invasive species management, habitat and migration restoration, fuels reductions and preventing unauthorized usage, said Dan Segersin, the vice chairman of outdoor programs for the Order of the Arrow.

The Bridger Teton was the only project to attract more than 1,000 Scouts, who were free to choose which project they participated in. Before arriving, Scouts had to go through about one full day of classes, pay $250 and provide their own transportation to Teton County.

What would motivate kids to pay money to work?
“It’s an honor type thing, leaving a legacy and meeting people,” said Kevin Knak, 15, of Salinas, Kansas. “And they can’t make you not take a break, because it’s volunteer labor.”

Each Scout had one “rest” day, where they could take a trip into Yellowstone, go whitewater rafting or just explore the town of Jackson. But the Scouts agreed that their favorite part of the trip was meeting people from all over the country and leaving behind work that other people can enjoy.

“I want to bring my parents back to show them where I’ve worked,” said David “Joker” Bruner, 18, from Baton Rouge, La. Joker was echoing a sentiment heard from other Scouts, that a piece of them now remains in the Tetons, and hopefully they’ll be able to come back and see it sometime in the future.

Photo by SPENCER SIMENSEN
Stephanie Thomas from Friends of Pathways gives the gift of ice cream to the deserving workers.

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Crews of Boy Scouts work to solve Teton Pass problems | Planet JH News Article: General News

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