BLM Outdoor Recreation Planner

I just completed my first successful field experience with a BLM expert. I spent the day with Eve Skillman who serves as the Outdoor Recreation Planner for the Casper Field Office. Basically, after the BLM purchases or is trusted a piece of land, Eve is given a basic idea of the the objective and the resources connected to the area and she designs a conceptual plan for the area. With a background in graphic design and an interest in the outdoors, she said her job is always changing and keeps her on her toes. Eve works with specialists, like an engineer, hydrologists, wildlife biologists and rangeland specialists to design a plan that meets requirements for accessibility and drainage. Once the plan is developed, the funding for the project is determined through general project funds and/or additional grants, if needed. Long-term maintenance is calculated and then the project goes to contract.

On our adventure, we started at Gray Reef Access and visited most of the recreation sites along the North Platte River up to Bessemer Bend Public Fishing Area. Throughout the day, we talked about the challenge BLM faces with making the land accessible to the public and recreationists, but how to also preserve the landscape and wildlife. Eve explained how she tries to design the facilities to match the landscape, in both color and the construction. For example, by making the main support beams follow the lines of the land, the shelter blends into the landscape and makes the man-made amenity less intrusive. There are over 100 million visitors to this section of the river every year, so it is critical that each site is designed to balance recreation and conservation in the natural habitat. 

Our adventure took the entire day and I learned that this section was only a small portion of the land the Casper Field Office manages. The BLM on a national level manages 264 million acres of public lands found primarily in the Western portion of the US. There is also 700 million acres of subsurface mineral resources located throughout the country. While the state of Wyoming has over 17.5 million acres of public land and 40.7 million acres of subsurface mining estate, the Casper Field Office alone manages nearly 20 million acres!! That is a lot of land!! 

BLM has field rangers who patrol the public lands similar to park rangers and game and fish wardens to monitor the land area and I found it surprising that the Casper Field Office has only one ranger. That means one person to patrol of 30,000 square miles of land! We ran into the Casper ranger and I hope to be able to ride along with him at some point during my internship. So I'll save my description of his role for later.

Below are some images and facts about a few of the sites I visited today. If you haven't had a chance to visit any, I would recommend taking some time this summer to explore the beautiful public lands we have available to us in Wyoming. 

You could, at one time, view and download the North Platte River Float and Access Guide, however, it appears that with their website redesign it is no longer accessible online. This showed the locations and amenities for the sites as well as which sections along the river are public and private land.

Gray Reef Access Area, Blue Gulch Trailhead, The Redds, Pete's Draw

• The Bureau of Reclamation manages the Gray Reef Access Area while Natrona County Parks maintains the facilities
• This site is a spawning habitat for trout so fishing is prohibited during the month of April
• One challenge at this site was to design a pathway that allowed pedestrian accessibility, but didn't drain and cause the run-off to flow into the river damaging the trout spawning habitat
• Just off the bank at Blue Gulch Trailhead, there are bat boxes. These help to reduce mosquitos without having to use pesticide sprays.
• At the Redd's, the BLM is working on reducing invasive species. Because of the heavy clay soil in the area, reseeding is difficult which is a major challenge to reintroduce native species. They are also looking to increase the number of woody trees while they attempt to reduce the amount of cheat grass and Russian Olives.
• The unique design of the drying soil was interesting to me. You can, however, see in the texture of the soil that it has a high clay content.

Lusby Public Fishing Area

• This is an important area for fishing both recreationally and commercially. In order to reduce the impact on the habitat, only a certain number of permits are allocated each year for commercial guiding companies. There are many guiding companies that continue to operate without a permit or with an expired permit hoping no one will notice. It was interesting to hear Eve talk about the talking points from each side of the debate. 
• Russian Olives are another invasive species. In the image to the right, you can see the different colors of the cut branches indicating how recent they were cut. The more color, the more recent the cut.

Trapper's Route Special Recreation Management Area

• Trapper's Route is continually being monitored to balance recreation, habitat preservation and wildlife along the North Platte River. I knew about a few of these sites but have come to discover that there are some very beautiful campsites.
• Golden Currant is tucked back along the river and I love the fact that it is walk in only (meaning there won't be any RV generators hindering my camping experience). There is easy access to the river which makes it a great place to stop on a long kayaking adventure.