Written by Sam Baggenstos, Conservation & Wilderness Associate.
Howdy, fellow adventurers! At the end of last month, I began a wilderness ranger assignment for the Red Rock Ranger District (RRRD) on the Coconino National Forest focusing on data collection. This district surrounds the town of Sedona and features some well known hikes such as the West Fork Trail, the Devil’s Bridge Trail, and Bell Rock. This work assignment will last until December and focus on work that includes recreation site monitoring, trail sustainability assessments, social trail inventory, and invasive plant surveys.
For the past month I have focused on collecting data in two of the six Wilderness areas that fall within the RRRD boundaries: West Clear Creek and Wet Beaver. Both of these Wilderness share at latest two features in common. First, they are both relatively small in size, with West Clear Creek measuring 15,465 acres and Wet Beaver coming in even smaller at 6,178 acres. In contrast, the Mazatzal Wilderness, one of the largest Wilderness areas in the state, boasts over 250,000 acres. Second, both West Creek and Wet Beaver are dominated by perennial streams that cut dramatically through the Mogollon Rim and empty into the Verde River. Slow quiet turns through a lush green landscape, loud happy splashes across boulders and rocks, and silent, slow-flowing pools bordered by close canyon walls are all water features that can be found in both these wilderness areas.
Which brings me to one of the main tasks I focused on the last two hitches: finding and assessing recreation sites. A recreation site is any particular place that people stop to recreate often enough that they leave an impact on the landscape. This could look like a lone fire ring on top of a slab of rock, or a wide-ranging complex of tent pads, scattered trash, bathroom spots, and graffiti. Each recreation site receives a score of 1-8, with 1 being minimal impact and 8 representing widespread damage.
This is my first time monitoring recreation sites, and it has made me realize the importance of practicing Leave No Trace principles. Leaving a ring of rocks or a spot of flattened vegetation does not have much immediate impact on the landscape, but it provides a blueprint for future campers to follow, which in time creates patterns of behavior that can bring about long term negative effects to an area. I was disgusted at the amount of trash left behind in the canyon, but then I sheepishly realized that I myself had contributed to the problem after two of my water bottles snuck out of my back pack pockets and floated away in one of the many pools in West Clear Creek . Hopefully, someone else will enjoy using them as much as I did. And next time I will attach them to my pack with carabiners.
