San Juan Mountains Association’s Forest Ambassador program has had success educating recreational users and mitigating some of the impacts of recreation on Southwest Colorado’s public lands.
Now, the nonprofit has extended a smaller version of the program into winter.
San Juan Mountains Association’s Snow Ambassador program hosts interpretive tours and assists winter users four days a week around Andrews Lake near Silverton. John Bozis, the lead and only snow ambassador, offers avalanche condition reports and trail suggestions while teaching users about the continued importance of Leave No Trace principles during the winter.
In its first season, the Snow Ambassador program is already a hit helping users and the U.S. Forest Service minimize the footprint of winter recreation with immediate plans to expand the program.
“The Forest Ambassador program this past summer was really effective and smoothly implemented, and it just felt like a shame to put the whole thing on the shelf despite the fact that visitation was continuing through the winter,” said David Taft, conservation director for San Juan Mountains Association.
“It kind of occurred to me: Let’s see if we can take the momentum that we’ve got from the summer and carry on through into the winter. Not only would that enable us to help out with some pretty clear objectives from the Forest Service, but it would also allow us to keep at least a couple of our staff on through the winter,” he said.
The Snow Ambassador program operates Fridays through Mondays out of San Juan Mountains Association’s Outdoor Research tiny house in the Andrews Lake parking area.
Bozis greets users when they arrive, providing reports about avalanche conditions for those planning to venture into the backcountry or friendly trail advice for new users who have never visited Andrews Lake before.
“Saturdays and Sundays are very busy, the lot gets nearly full, but Fridays and Mondays are pretty busy as well,” he said. “... I would estimate 75 to 80% of the visitors in the area are from Durango and a fair amount of them are newer users. I really talk to folks about first of all avalanche conditions and being aware of the conditions, but (also) pointing people in the right direction for what they feel will work for them.”
Bozis aims to get out on the snow for a two-hour tour each day so he can meet visitors where they are, answering any questions and chatting with them to learn about where they are from, in part because the information helps the San Juan National Forest and the Forest Service better understand who is participating in winter recreation.
“We’re really trying to connect with people out there, so they know that they have a reliable source out there that’s in that area if they have questions or concerns,” he said.
Every other Saturday, the Snow Ambassador program hosts free interpretive backcountry ski and snowshoe tours from 2 to 4 p.m. Bozis and partners from the Mountain Studies Institute lead visitors into the field where they can dig avalanche pits and use snow science kits to learn about snowpack.
“It shows them where the layers are in the snow, and it is a timeline of the snow that we’ve had in the last couple of months,” he said. “That’s pretty eye-opening to the participants.”
Bozis and partners from Mountain Studies Institute use the snow as a segue into broader conversations about watersheds, forest health and climate change in the San Juans.
At the end of the tour, the group returns to the parking lot and the Outdoor Research tiny house where they can enjoy a fire and hot beverages such as cocoa and coffee.
The tours have been popular with 20 to 30 participants joining, Bozis said.
Much like its flagship summer stewardship program, San Juan Mountains Association’s Snow Ambassadors program places an emphasis on education.
Bozis spends much of his time making contact with visitors to share the continued importance of Leave No Trace ethics during the winter. Trash remains a problem, and he has noticed that fewer people pick up after their pets during the winter.
“All those principles apply in winter as well as summer,” he said. “We’ve got to do the same in the winter as we do in summer and educate folks, especially new users out there, about leaving no trace and pack it in, pack it out.”
The San Juan Mountains Association started this year’s pilot of the Snow Ambassador program after receiving additional funding and approaching San Juan National Forest about the project.
The Forest Service previously had its own winter outreach effort in San Juan National Forest in the late 1990s, but the program was intended to reduce conflict between snowmobilers and hikers and skiers, said Scott Owen, spokesman for San Juan National Forest.
As those conflicts decreased, the Forest Service’s own ambassador program went away, he said.
San Juan Mountains Association’s Snow Ambassador program replaces conflict management with education and interpretation to mitigate the impacts of recreation as more people flock to winter sports.
“We’ve heard for many years that both the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service were somewhat concerned with rising winter visitation and didn’t really have a good plan for how to address it,” Taft said.
Winter is a delicate time for wildlife as they navigate the scarce winter months.
“When you’ve got thousands of people out there recreating, it has a really significant impact on herd survival and success rates for some of our bigger ungulates (hoofed mammals such as elk and deer),” Taft said.
He said there has been some discussion about creating a winter travel management plan for the San Juan National Forest to help mitigate the impacts of recreation, though there are no concrete or immediate plans.
The Snow Ambassador program will help collect some data about winter recreation so that if the national forest ever decided to create the plan, it would have more information to work with, he said.
The genesis of the Forest Service’s involvement was less about the impacts of winter recreation and more about the success of the summer Forest Ambassadors, Owen said.
“We decided to increase (the ambassador program) to the winter, not because there’s anything wrong, but just because there’s been so much positive feedback,” he said. “There’s a lot more people interested in winter recreation as Southwest Colorado grows and people get to know the opportunities that are afforded to them, whether that’s snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, or snowmobiling. We just want to make sure that people are informed and educated about the rules and regulations concerning the forest.”
San Juan Mountains Association’s Snow Ambassador program and its interpretive tours will run through March ahead of the spring and summer seasons. Training for Forest Ambassadors will begin in mid-May and by Memorial Day the crew will be out on the trails.
Bozis will host the last tour on March 26, according to San Juan Mountains Association’s website.
Participants can register for tours by visiting sjma.org/events.
This year’s pilot of the Snow Ambassador program has been so successful that San Juan Mountains Association has immediate plans to expand the program next year. The Pagosa District of the Rio Grande National Forest has expressed interest in expanding the program to Wolf Creek Pass, Taft said.
With funding, one Snow Ambassador will travel the U.S. Highway 550 corridor and another will travel along U.S. Highway 160 helping winter recreation users.
“It’s been wildly popular,” Taft said. “We weren’t really sure how we would take off, but we’ve had really great registration numbers (for the tours) and it seems like the community is really behind the effort.”
ahannon@durangoherald.com
