Julia Stuble, public lands advocate

Fremont County Residents: You can help determine the future of some of our most beloved local landscapes by applying to participate in the Fremont County advisory committee! Deadline to apply is April 14.

What is the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative?

The Wyoming Public Lands Initiative is a county-convened process intended to bring together a wide range of stakeholders to collaborate and create federal legislation for public land management. This opportunity will attempt to address how public land agencies manage our special landscapes, including “wilderness study areas.”

Click for a (PDF) or (Microsoft Word Doc) of the application. 

What Are Wilderness Study Areas?

Wilderness study areas, sometimes called WSAs, are special places that, almost three decades ago, were determined to have wilderness character. Only the U.S. Congress can designate wilderness, so after these wild lands were inventoried, they were given the status of “wilderness study areas.” There are 42 of these areas managed by the BLM in Wyoming and three managed by the Forest Service, totaling over 700,000 acres. Because they lack the permanence of formally designated wilderness, their status has been in limbo for years. The agencies manage them to retain their wilderness character until directed by legislation for their permanent protection or other management.

Why Not Just Leave Them the Way They Are?

The status quo might not be the best option anymore. Wilderness study areas were always an impermanent designation. These lands were never meant to be managed for so many years as wilderness without formal designation—and there are stakeholders in Wyoming who would like to see the question resolved and see a permanent decision. Many of these areas’ wilderness qualities have been threatened by mismanagement and impairment and there’s the threat that Congress could make a decision about their fate without our input.

What Can We Do in this Process?

Some stakeholders would like to see all of these wilderness study areas released, which means they wouldn’t be managed to retain their wild character. Others would like most or all of them to be permanently designated wilderness. The middle ground might well be some special, directed management designed to protect the specific values and uses within each landscape, while protecting the wild areas through designation as wilderness. We believe that in order to be successful in finding win-win solutions, this process needs to look beyond WSAs to adjacent lands or other county landscapes and explore other public land management options—this is a chance to set aside, or design management for, WSAs and other special landscapes. If the question of WSAs is to be resolved, stakeholders in Wyoming will have to come together, find common ground, and explore opportunities for compromise.

What is the Best Case Scenario?

Stakeholders with diverse interests work together in good faith to create legislation permanently addressing Wyoming wilderness study areas, and to design permanent management for other important landscapes, using a process that is fair, inclusive, transparent, and appropriate for the values in question. We believe it’s possible to create win-win solutions that protect these landscapes and provide certainty for our local communities. If done right, there is a chance that we could see the first new wilderness designations in Wyoming in more than 30 years and other permanent designations for our special local landscapes. This could happen only if a bill is crafted that has broad local support, from hunting, angling, recreation, economic, and cultural interests, as well as the support of the conservation community and elected officials. In our minds, that’s a goal worth working toward for these special places.

What Can You Do?

You can help by getting involved in this process! By participating, you will be able to bring your unique perspective to a diverse table of stakeholders. The quality of life we enjoy in Fremont County, as well as our outdoor recreation and tourism economy, will benefit by adding permanent protections to our most special public lands. By sitting down in good faith with neighbors to share our values and perspectives, we can help create federal legislation that could permanently protect some of these areas and design management for others that would conserve their important values. This is a not a chance that comes around often.

How Do You Get Involved?

Print and fill out the application (PDF) or (Microsoft Word Doc) and return it to the county courthouse in person or by email by April 14. IMPORTANT: Please be sure to check all of the categories that you can represent, including “general public.”

• In the additional comments section, please be sure to suggest other categories or interests (historical, cultural, local business, tourism industry, type of recreation group, etc.) if you don’t feel the given categories fully represent your expertise, interest group, or perspective.
• When asked about designations or management that you would consider, it’s important to note you are open to learning about the full range of possible designations or management and will keep an open mind during deliberations.
• Be able to attend meetings—the Advisory Committee will likely host all-day meetings once a month for a year or two. Some months may require more than one meeting, and in the second year, there may be fewer.  

Our Wilderness Study Areas

Fremont County has five, and portions of three others, including the tiny Whiskey Mountain add-on near Dubois and the colorfully rugged Dubois Badlands, the incredible Lankin Dome climbing area, little-known Copper Mountain to the north, and the popular Sweetwater Canyon to the south. The Fremont committee is expected to also work with Sweetwater County on the shared northern Red Desert areas, including the astounding Honeycomb Buttes and Whitehorse Creek and with Natrona County on the Sweetwater Rocks area. Remember: the landscapes around these WSAs, or others elsewhere in the county, will be included too so other opportunities for permanent landscape protections throughout the county should also arise.

Click here to download a PDF fact sheet about this process.

“The people of Wyoming understand that once our public lands are taken and auctioned off to the highest bidder, that’s it. Up go the No Trespassing signs and there goes our access.”

Click here or on the image above to read more!

A vast region of public lands in Wyoming—from the southern edge of the beautiful Upper Green River Valley, down to Flaming Gorge, and across the northern Red Desert to the stunning landscape of Adobe Town—will have a new land-use plan in the next few years. Public land managers are working on this new plan right now. To help inform that process, the Wyoming Outdoor Council and our partners have identified five priority landscapes that deserve to be protected within this new plan. Check them out!

1. The Incredible Northern Red Desert

From the towering Oregon Buttes to the Great Divide Basin, it was the Northern Red Desert’s open spaces that provided solace for Wyoming Outdoor Council founder, Tom Bell, during his recovery from injuries sustained during his military service in World War II. Protecting the Northern Red Desert is part of the Outdoor Council’s DNA, and it is at the heart of our mission. Home to a rare, resident desert elk herd, wintering migratory elk, pronghorn, greater sage-grouse, dozens of sagebrush dependent animals and birds, golden eagles and other raptors, among other wildlife, the Northern Red Desert is a place like no other. The longest known mule deer migration corridor—the Red Desert to Hoback—starts here each spring and thousands of deer arrive again each fall to spend the winter in the wind-swept Leucite Hills.

Other treasures include the Honeycomb Buttes Wilderness Study Area, Whitehorse Creek Wilderness Study Area, the Killpecker Sand Dunes and Boar’s Tusk, rock art in Pine and Cedar Canyons and along White Mountain. The Oregon, California, Mormon national historic trails and Pony Express route traverse South Pass along the western edge of the northern Red Desert. Just west of Oregon Buttes, at Pacific Springs, emigrants celebrated their entry into Oregon Territory.

2. The Big Sandy Foothills

Providing critical habitat for several big game species, sagebrush dependent birds, and other wildlife, the Big Sandy Foothills are known to local land and wildlife managers as “the Golden Triangle.” This triangle of land epitomizes the sagebrush sea: rolling hills rise to the forest-clad Prospect Mountains. Behind the Prospects, the Sweetwater River exits the Wind River Range before it winds through the Foothills and edges east along the northern Red Desert. The Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration passes through the Foothills, and picks up thousands of deer that wintered among the Prospects.

Hunting opportunities are rich, as are hiking, camping, and wildlife watching. Additionally, the National Historic Trails corridor, encompassing the Oregon, California, Mormon and Pony Express traverses the Big Sandy Foothills. One of the most significant sites on trial, the Parting of the Ways, is in the Foothills; here, trails diverged and some Oregon emigrants headed straight west rather than following California and Mormon emigrants south to Fort Bridger.

3. Greater Little Mountain

A complex of pine, aspen, and juniper-clad mountains rising above the Flaming Gorge and high desert, the Little Mountain area is a paradise for big game hunters. This is where hunting and fishing traditions are passed down generation to generation. Fast-running cold-water creeks ripple out of the high country. Currant, Red and Sage Creeks even host Colorado River cutthroat trout. The summits of Pine, Little, Richards, and Millar mountains offer extensive views of the high country, surrounding desert, and the red rocks of the Gorge. The Red Creek Badlands Wilderness Study Area is renowned by those adventurers seeking solitude by hiking or cross-country skiing.

4. Adobe Town

The wild heart of the southern Red Desert. Adobe Town is home to the largest wilderness study area in Wyoming—badlands, buttes, hoodoos, and eroding sedimentary rims combine to create a breathtaking landscape worthy of a national park. Butch Cassidy and his gang sheltered in the Haystacks, to the north, and Powder Wash, to the south. Open spaces stretch west to Kinney Rim, which is renowned by big game hunters and hikers seeking solitude and stunning views. Though difficult to access, visiting Adobe Town is well worth the effort.

5. Devil’s Playground

The Devil’s Playground area is a secret gem. With its two wilderness study areas (including Twin Buttes) and views of Black and Cedar Mountains, just west of Flaming Gorge, this playground’s towering buttes provide excellent wildlife habitat above the surrounding sagebrush sea. The wild character of these wind-swept buttes, scattered with teepee rings, stands in stark contrast to the busy shores of Flaming Gorge. For those wanting to get off the beaten track and not encounter another person while wandering in the desert, Devil’s Playground is the ideal destination.

“In this age of being able to tap a screen to find the answer to nearly any question we can come up with, it delights me to be reminded that the natural world still harbors secrets and mysteries. It thrills me to think of all we don’t know.”

Click here or on the image above to read more!

Dear members and supporters,

Nearly ten years in the works, the Shoshone National Forest released its new long-term land-use plan today—and there’s a lot to be happy about.

The Shoshone is our country’s first national forest and it remains one of its wildest. As you might expect with a 2.4 million acre forest and tens of thousands of stakeholders, nobody got everything they wanted in this plan. That’s really the way it should be.

Photo: © Scott Copeland Images

In the big picture—and a land use plan is just that: a big picture management framework—the Forest Service struck a balance that keeps management of the Shoshone on a good path and safeguards the wild, backcountry values that make it unique.

Our primary goal in this plan revision was to ensure that the Shoshone remains a place where wildlife continues to thrive, watersheds and air quality are protected, and people can go to experience unparalleled backcountry exploring, camping, hunting, and fishing.

We are pleased that large parts of the Shoshone are now designated as unsuitable for industrial oil and gas surface development. This was perhaps our biggest priority—and something we are grateful Governor Mead largely supported. And, although no wilderness recommendations were made, the highest quality backcountry areas will be managed for year-round, backcountry non-motorized recreation—something we fought hard to retain through the objection process last year.

Photo: Rich Brame

If you’d like to commend the hardworking Shoshone National Forest staff, you can send an email to Joe Alexander, the forest supervisor.

I believe that as Americans we are privileged to share in the ownership of such vast and inspiring pubic lands. With this privilege, however, comes the responsibility to participate in the public processes that affect our shared public lands. With your steadfast support of the Outdoor Council and with your own individual actions—whether attending a meeting or writing letters—you have made your voice heard and have made a difference. Thank you.

Warm regards,
Lisa

We have great news on the Shoshone National Forest! As a result of a national-level review, the United States Forest Service has issued instructions that the Shoshone manage Francs Peak, Wood River, and the Dunoir areas to retain their wild, backcountry characteristics.

Earlier this year we objected to last-minute changes to the Shoshone’s new revised forest plan, which would have allowed motorized use in Francs Peak and Wood River and would have weakened protections for the Dunoir. The Forest Service itself identified these three areas as having the very highest wilderness potential on the forest, and while none has yet been recommended for wilderness, all will now be managed to safeguard their values, which include some of the finest wildlife habitat and recreational landscapes in Wyoming.

Francs peak and the surrounding land is considered one of the highest ranked potential wilderness areas by the Shoshone National Forest. Photo: Brian Sybert

As many of you know, the existing forest plan was finalized in 1986 and the process to revise it has been a long one. The Wyoming Outdoor Council has been at the table from the start and with the support of our members we have worked hard to ensure that the Shoshone’s backcountry character is protected.

Much of our focus during this plan revision has been to ensure strong safeguards are in place to avoid impacts from oil and gas surface development. We were extremely pleased that in the final draft plan the vast majority of the Shoshone has been deemed “unsuitable” for this use. We anticipate these good revisions will remain.

We are grateful the Forest Service listened to our concerns about Francs Peak, Wood River and the Dunoir and are excited that these protections will be incorporated into the final forest plan. We will be sure to update you when we know more.

Happy holidays,

Lisa McGee, program director