10 Years on Trails: A Decade of Trail Work in the Wild

Join Wilderness Ranger Jesse Lutz for an evening of photographs documenting a decade of trail work accomplished in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness.  At 2.3 million acres, the Frank Church is the United States’ largest contiguous road-less area in the lower 48 states.  Signed into law in 1964, the Wilderness Act is used to designate tracts of land where women and men are to remain merely visitors, to be managed as wild, natural, and untrammeled by development and use.  This also means – no motors.  U.S. Forest Service trail crews and rangers have been able to maintain an average of 430 miles of trails per year over the last decade with the use of primitive hand tools like the cross-cut saw and pulaski.

Jesse Lutz, a Transylvania County native, began working in Idaho for the United States Forest Service in the summer of 2008. It only took one season for him to get hooked on the wild and rugged characteristics of the north western U.S.  He credits his love for the outdoors to his parents, who always instilled in him a respect for public lands and nature – even when things didn’t go as planned. He now lives in McCall, Idaho and continues to work for the forest service seasonally.

This program is sponsored by the Friends of the Library.  Light refreshments provided.