Local governments since 2018 have funded the Front Country Ranger program to bolster U.S. Forest Service work in local national forests. That work will continue this year, but the structure will be a little different.

Eagle County and local towns this year have budgeted $160,000 to hire seasonal workers, but with a current federal freeze on seasonal hiring, the local effort and the Forest Service had to find a work-around.

Marcia Gilles, Eagle County Open Space and Natural Resources Director, said the Front Country Rangers the details are still being worked out, but it looks like employees will be hired under the auspices of the local Youth Corps and Vail Valley Mountain Trails Association. Those hired under those programs will be managed by Forest Service “permanent seasonal” employees.

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The Forest Service employees will handle visitor contacts and education, while employees will take care of physical labor.

And the Front Country Rangers do a lot of work over the summer season.

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In a January presentation to the Eagle County Board of Commissioners, Forest recreation specialist Trish Barre detailed some of the work done by those crews.

That work included a lot of cleaning up after visitors, to the tune of collecting more than 5,000 pounds of trash. Included in that trash was enough nails to fill to fill three five-gallon buckets.

Gilles noted that Front Country Ranger efforts also included extinguishing more than 30 campfires that had been left smoldering and picking up a lot of both pet and human waste.

Gilles, who used to work for the Forest Service, said beyond cleaning up after forest visitors, “We really want to educate people.” That includes getting people to remove their trash and waste and put out their fires.

“We want people to make a muddy mess” in fire pits, Gilles said, noting that otherwise fires can spark up again. People “have to take that ownership,” she noted.

Summer crew efforts also include trail rehabilitation and work to close unauthorized trails. Other work includes rebuilding fences. Work in 2024, primarily in the Homestake Creek area, included a lot of work in “dispersed” camping areas, sites not in camprounds. That work included installing fire rings in those sites. Work scheduled for this year includes putting picnic tables at those sites. There are also plans for installing signs, in both English and Spanish, detailing rules about forest use.

Gilles said the structure of this year’s crews will be “similar” to those used in the past.

“The public should feel confident” that essential work is going to be done, she said.