Bob Marshall Foundation continues to expand scope of mission

You might say Cliff Kipp is getting a new look at the old woods. Kipp just finished his first summer as the Director of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation. He’s no stranger to the woods, however, having spent the previous 20 years as the director of the Kalispell Montana Conservation Corps.

MCC is a young adult voluntary development program modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s, using conservation projects to foster citizenship and personal growth in its members, which get paid a small stipend for their efforts. They do a lot of work on trails in places like the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

The Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, save for its talented support staff, is largely about volunteers.

The first summer was a lot of fun for Kipp and he takes almost no credit for its success.

“I walked into a really great team,” he said in a recent interview. “To a person they’re motivated by the place and the mission.”

That team includes longtime program director Rebecca Powell, operations director Allison Siems, field coordinator Ian Bartling, education and partnership coordinator Eryn Castellanos, business affairs specialist Angela Wonders and Zack Schlanger, invasive species coordinator, as well as a host of summer crews leaders.

But while MCC was largely funded by federal grants, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation sees about 40% of its budget come from private donors, many of whom simply have a love for the 1.6 million-acre wilderness complex.

The Foundation initially started out years ago as an organization conceived to help with trail and other projects in the Bob. Today it encourages trips from a diverse swath of the American public, is helping fight weeds and other invasive species and takes pains to teach today’s younger generations on how to be good future stewards of the land and even how to pack a mule string through its apprentice packer program.

The director post is a rewarding challenge, as the Foundation works with three different National Forests and five different ranger districts.

Kipp said he sees his charge to sustain and build upon the good work that’s already been done by the organization over the years. For example, the Foundation is working with the ranger districts on a invasive weed programs under a $550,000 federal grant. The first year, which was last summer, was largely about identifying problem areas. The coming years will be about control methods.

They’re also working on educating youth in the Bob — last year the organization reached 8,000 students across 23 educational events, all around the complex. The staff coordinated citizen science and Wilderness 101 stewardship trips with a host of affinity and partner groups including Girls/Women in the Bob, Here Montana, Latino Outdoors, Glacier-Queer Alliance, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance, Piikuni Lands Crew, and Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.

They also didi 43 trail stewardship projects engaging over 445 volunteers. They cleared 2,500 trees from 586 miles of trail and also brushed 60 miles of trail — cutting back encroaching vegetation.

One trip Kipp was on, they cleared 460 trees alone in Goat Creek.

They often partner up with other stewards of the wilderness, including Montana Wild, Backcountry Horsemen and the Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance Montana Wild, Backcountry Horsemen, Glacier-Two Medicine Alliance and a host of local corporate sponsors that help with funding.

Kipp said in the future he’d like to see the organization take on an even more active role in supporting stewardship of the wilderness, particularly in the realm of education.

For example, climate change is already having an impact on some of its trips. On one trip, they were supposed to float the South Fork of the Flathead and pull weeds along the way, but the river was too low to float.

Wildfires, which are nearly a perennial occurrence in the wilderness, can also snarl plans.

“Climate change is real and part of it,” he noted.

But so far, so good.

“I feel super privileged and really lucky to be in this role with this team,” he said.