A Sense of Place

Wyoming has forty-five Wilderness Study Areas. Forty-two of these are the result of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 directed the Bureau of Land Management to inventory and study its roadless areas for wilderness characteristics throughout the west. The other three WSAs are managed by the U.S. Forest Service and are the result of the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984. WSA lands are undeveloped, roadless lands that have retained their primeval character and are managed to preserve their natural condition and future possible inclusion in the Wilderness Preservation System.

The 3.4 million acre Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) currently has 1.3 million acres of Wilderness already designated, and another 1.5 million acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas that have the potential of receiving Wilderness protection. This includes but is not limited to the Palisades Wilderness Study Area, Shoal Creek Wilderness Study Area and Mount Leidy Highlands.  In 2008, the BTNF completed its “Evaluation of Areas with Wilderness Potential” and found that 87 percent of BTNF roadless areas contained great potential for wilderness recommendations. WWA believes that a majority of these acres stand to be recommended as Wilderness in the upcoming National Forest plan revision that is expected to get underway at some point in fiscal year 2022. WWA has been organizing around this anticipated process for over a year now, and is ready to engage whenever it begins. We also watchdog ongoing policy and management decisions that would impact this Forest, and organize education and stewardship programs that engage the public here.

The Shoshone National Forest is our first national forest, set aside in 1891 as part of the Yellowstone Timber Reserve. This 2.4 million acre Forest bordering Yellowstone National Park is a critical component of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the last ecologically intact temperate ecosystems in the world. Also known as the ‘horse forest’, over half of the Shoshone is designated wilderness and boasts a uniquely wild backcountry character.  WWA worked diligently to protect the Shoshone’s wildlands through a 10-year Forest Planning process. The final Forest Plan protected the wilderness quality of many of the Shoshone’s roadless areas under a ‘backcountry' management status. It also upheld the Dunoir SMU's special non-motorized and non-mechanized management rules, ensuring this area is eligible for future Wilderness designation. WWA is currently working to protect vulnerable roadless areas, wilderness study areas, and designated wilderness areas from new or increased motorized access through the Shoshone's Travel Management Planning.

Often described as the largest unfenced area in the lower-48 states, Wyoming’s Red Desert boasts a matrix of wild lands that have either been congressionally designated, identified by way of BLM land management policy, or effectively retain their wilderness character as a function of remote geography, rugged topography, and limited mineral development potential. Although boundaries of the Red Desert are relatively vague, this landscape contains between nine and twelve unique Wilderness Study Areas (designated by Congress), nearly 40 thousand acres of Lands with Wilderness Characteristics (LWC) – an official federal land-use policy designation that stipulates such lands should be managed for their wilderness quality as part of the BLM’s “multiple-use” management mandate – as well as over 160 thousand acres of Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), which the BLM assigns to landscapes in an effort to protect specific and important resources. In conjunction, these management regimes protect such resources as critical wildlife habitat, migration corridors, rare and important plant resources, scenic views and historical and cultural sites. All told, with well over half a million acres of unimpaired wilderness quality lands, the Northern Red Desert remains comparatively wild, roadless, and unaltered in its natural character – a national treasure that deserves unified protections. Wyoming Wilderness Association actively works to defend the wild character of this landscape through our consistent work in the Rock Springs BLM Resource Management Plan advocacy coalition, as well as being a foundational partner of the Citizens for the Red Desert group, which seeks to permanently safeguard the values of the Red Desert through Congressional legislation.

The Bighorn National Forest is one of our oldest forests, set aside in 1897. The headwaters of the Bighorn River was first named by Native peoples due to the vast numbers of bighorn sheep that congregated at the river’s mouth. This 1.1 million acre forest includes 189,000 acres of designated Wilderness (Cloud Peak Wilderness), old fire lookouts, and 1,200 miles of trails. WWA’s consistent engagement and inventories during the 2005 Revision of the Land and Resource Management Plan successfully resulted in Rock Creek Recommended Wilderness and the protection of many roadless areas within the Bighorns. WWA is currently working to protect our priority landscapes (Rock Creek Recommended Wilderness, Wild and Scenic eligible rivers, Tongue River Canyon Corridor, Wilderness Study Areas, Cloud Peak Wilderness) through advocacy, education and stewardship efforts. WWA has partnered with the Bighorn National Forest for the last decade recruiting our members, local youth, and greater community to volunteer on a variety of projects which include: fence removal, TRAC (trail) surveys, cave graffiti removal, trail restoration, clean-ups, and Wilderness Campsite Assessments. 

The Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland spans nearly 2.9 million acres from northern Colorado into Eastern Wyoming. With elevations ranging from just over 5,000 feet in the lowland grasslands to over 12,000 feet at the top of Medicine Bow peak, this forest and grassland administrative unit contains an incredible diversity of plant and animal life, as well as a broad array of recreational opportunities for the public. With nearly 80 thousand acres of designated Wilderness in the Wyoming portion of the forest, another 28 thousand acres recommended for Wilderness by the forest service, and over 450 thousand acres of inventoried roadless areas, the Medicine Bow contains important wild country near the population centers of Wyoming and the Colorado front range. Wyoming Wilderness Association advocates on behalf of these lands whenever a planning activity might threaten the wild character of this landscape providing notice for members of the public to make their interest in this forest known to managers.