Lauren Simms

Lead Wilderness Steward

Hitch #6: August 17-24th

Salmon-Challis National Forest | Frank Church Wilderness

The season up until now has been filled with excitement, challenges, new adventures, and a plethora of new places. This hitch I found myself and one other working as a two-person crew, an entirely new challenge in and of itself. To complicate matters, the Moose Fire in the Salmon-Challis continues to burn and spread, causing the shutdown of the Salmon River Road. This culminated in last-minute changes to our hitch plan, shifting us from being ferried across the North Fork of the Salmon River and packed up to Butts Creek Point Lookout to car camping off the side of Dagger Falls Road 568.

*Lauren Simms sitting on a burnt log shaped like a mushroom that was cut just moments prior.*

Last year this area burned in the Boundary Creek Fire, which left the first 2 miles of the Camptender Trail scorched and filled with fallen trees. We intended upon cutting out the first three miles of the trail and then bumping camp to the headwaters of the Boundary Creek, but the number of trees down put a damper on this plan. Within the first two days, we had cut over 70 trees and had only progressed a mile into the trail. This meant yet another change of plans, something that is integral to the world of trail work. Of course, the constant shifting of plans can be frustrating and overwhelming at times, but it is our passion for public lands that keeps us going. This work is not always glorious and very seldom can the work be called easy, but it is always rewarding and fulfilling.

This hitch was tough, no doubt about it. Not only was the work grueling but it is very easy to get lonely out there in the Wilderness, even with another person for companionship. For eight whole days, we only saw one other person. It is during these tough times that I truly get in touch with why I do this work. Even when it seems futile, when it is only two of us facing a seemingly endless parade of downed logs, I know that this work, each tree cut, fits into a greater scheme of conservation. I am here so that our public lands will stay public lands, and so that any argument made toward privatizing these lands can be met with concrete statistics and lived experiences. It is truly the work of stalwart individuals like us that creates not only the bulwark against private interests but also the foundation upon which all recreation and public land use stands.

Lauren Simms

Salmon-Challis National Forest: Lead Wilderness Steward

Lauren grew up outside of Philadelphia. She found her love for trails in Yosemite, where she was a youth corps member. In 2019 Lauren served 14 weeks as a SBFC Wilderness Ranger Fellow in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, her first experience in capital-W Wilderness. We are very happy Lauren has returned and is working on the SBFC Frank Church Wilderness crew.