Over the years, Elk Creek Ranch has found opportunities to do service work in Sunlight. In the early years, Ranchers helped put out a small forest fire started by a lightning strike. In the 1980’s we cleaned the Sunlight Road for a number of years. The recent pine beetle infestation in Shoshone National Forest has created a significant forest fire challenge for the Forest Service. With 40,000,000 acres of trees killed in the West, the local, state, and federal resources are overwhelmed during the summer.

In 2012, Elk Creek approached the Shoshone Forest Service to see what we might do to help. We have long enjoyed the opportunities provided by the Shoshone for the Ranchers. We have practiced low impact camping techniques to leave as small a footprint as possible as we travel through the forest. It seemed right in all ways to expand that idea to take a larger role in the stewardship of the our high country. In 2013, we volunteered with the Forest Service on fire mitigation and forest restoration work on the national forest. We were gratified by the enthusiastic response of the Ranchers to the heavy lifting and hot work of clearing and stacking logs and slash for burning during the winter. We have plans to continue that work in the coming years and to expand our efforts to work on trail maintenance.