Field News Recap – July 2024
SHARE
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
SHARE
The first week of July marked the final week of the first camping session, with crews engaged in various long-term projects. The Backcountry Leadership Program (BLP) (YCC 4) was ten miles into the backcountry of the Frank Church Wilderness, conducting trail maintenance.
Blue crew (YCC 2) was up north in the Panhandle, brushing out several trails for the St. Joe Ranger District.
Meanwhile, Red and Orange crews (YCC 3 and 5) camped together and worked on separate trails for the Emmett Ranger District in the Boise National Forest. Many of these projects will be picked up by the second session crews.
All crews graduated on July 6th with a celebratory event at Liberty Park in Boise. Following a week off for our leads and the arrival of a new group of participants, orientation for the second session was held on July 13th, and four crews headed back into the field the next day.
Backcounty Leadership Program (BLP) (YCC 17) resumed their predecessor’s trail project in the Frank Church Wilderness, focusing on brushing and tread work for the Salmon-Challis National Forest, and will continue through the end of the month.
Blue crew (YCC 15) started work on a fuel break and fireline project with the Cascade Ranger District of the Boise National Forest, continuing through the end of this week before transferring to the Sawtooth National Forest for trail work.
Red crew (YCC 16) began their session with the Emmett Ranger District, working on meadow restoration by building Beaver Dam Analogs, then moved to a two-week trail maintenance project with the Minidoka Ranger District on the Sawtooth.
Orange Crew (YCC 18) returned to the trail project on the Emmett Ranger District from the first session and continued maintaining the trail. They moved to a different trail on the Mountain Home Ranger District of the Boise National Forest for the last week of July and will start a new fuel break and fireline project early August.
Idaho’s Urban and Community Forestry Crews have also been hard at work throughout July:
Blue crew (YCComm 13) started the 2nd session by saying farewell to their co-leader Miranda. She assisted the Youth Camping program by filling in for a crew leader on the Back Country Leadership Program. She has been out doing trail work on backcountry trails of the Little Pistol Creek Trail system in the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Her co-lead and crew members wish her well and have sent letters to keep in touch. Lauren has stepped up and took on this crew solo with the help of Yellow crew’s lead, Allison, who now splits her time between both crews. Crews have spent time with the Nampa Forestry Department mulching many new trees, including trees that are recently planted in the Phase 2 grand opening of Orah Brandt Park in Nampa.
Lauren has also guided these crews out to the Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge just south of Nampa to install boot brushes and signage to help educate and prevent the spread of invasive species.
Crews got to utilize a motorized auger (a corkscrew-style tool used for digging holes) which members expressed excitement over. They then had opportunities provided to assist the Lucky Peak Nursery as an educational training opportunity to see how a large tree farm operates; with a sole mission to assist in the reforestation of public lands. These teachings opportunities led to guidance on how to tend and care for the cottonwood seedlings planted and propagated from the previous UCF Summer youth sessions.
In the last week, they worked to “up-pot” many of these seedlings, as they have outgrown their initial seedling trays they were propagated in. Once fully matured, the goal is to allow future crews to plant them along the Boise River to continue providing bank stabilization and improving the population of native cottonwoods to the Boise River Riparian areas.
It has been a session of media exposure for Yellow crew (YCCom 14). In thanks to the pilot project put on by Climate Adaptation, Planning +Analytics (CAPA) Strategies’ Neighborhood Heat Stress Monitoring Center for Regenerative Solutions: Community Forest Corps Program. This organization based out of Portland, Oregon reached out to our project partners, Treasure Valley Canopy Network (TVCN) and the City of Boise’s Sustainability team to use the City of Boise for one of their monitoring sites. Thanks to great partnership and collaboration with the City of Boise and TVCN, they immediately thought about our UCF program, and asked if we want to spearhead the data collection for CAPA strategies. The timing was great, as this Neighborhood Heat Stress Monitoring has congruent goals of improving the urban canopy capacity of possible heat island areas in an urban setting.
After meeting with these partners, we set up the monitoring program in one of our Climate and Economical Justice Screening Tool (CEJST) neighborhoods. This data will assist the City of Boise and TVCN to prioritize the need for more tree canopy in low income neighborhoods, where over the next 4 years, in a full circle moment, we hope to have our UCF crews be the boots on the ground to plant those new trees. Not only is this crew collecting data three times a week, but they are maintaining the needs of the City of Boise’s backlog of tree maintenance in their parks. Yellow crew has continued to cut tree rings around many mature trees in parks and lay down mulch for the first time in many years. They have also participated in the trips to the Lucky Peak Nursery and maintaining their own set of black cottonwood seedlings.
Both crews also dealt with abnormally early “smoke” season from an earlier fire season. We have increased their educational time by organizing tours with the local wastewater treatment plant, that also has an incredible aquatic educational center.