During a regular Monday morning meeting of his most senior staff members, U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell picked up a heavy plaque made of green and white granite inscribed with some very special words: “Ian Nelson” and “Wilderness Champion.”
Nelson is PCTA’s longest serving regional representative, covering Southern Oregon and Northern California. Tidwell – the Chief, as he is affectionately called – presented Ian the Bob Marshall Award for Group Champion of Wilderness Stewardship. More than 50 percent of the PCT is in federally designated Wilderness, and PCTA, in partnership with the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and many others, manages the trail for its wilderness character.
U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell presents Ian Nelson (right) with the Bob Marshall Award. Associate Chief Mary Wagner is at left. (Photo by Mark Larabee, PCTA)
About two-dozen Forest Service leaders, including Associate Chief Mary Wagner, were on hand at their headquarters near the Washington Monument. Beth Boyst, the Forest Service’s PCT program manager, was also there, along with PCTA’s Executive Director and CEO Liz Bergeron and Trail Operations Director Mike Dawson.
The award was announced last November to recognize Nelson and the rest of PCTA’s Trail Operations staff for their great enthusiasm and ability to mobilize volunteers for trail maintenance in the Sky Lakes and Red Butte wilderness areas.
“I look around in my office and I don’t see one of these,” Tidwell said admiringly of the award. “It’s something I’m still striving for.”
Tidwell spoke about the significance of wilderness in this, the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Wilderness Act, and our collective responsibility to protect these special areas with “intact systems.” He also noted Nelson’s work with volunteers and PCTA’s Trail Skills College.
Nelson told the group that wilderness has always been dear to him and he said the award, though it carried his name, belongs to all his fellow regional representatives. “I’ll be proud to go home and share this with them as well,” he said.
Of the PCT, Tidwell said: “It’s an incredible resource this country has and it’s incredible what you do to bring partners and volunteers out there. Without that, we wouldn’t have the resource.”
Nelson is in Washington, D.C. as part of PCTA’s annual “Hike the Hill” contingent that includes 14 volunteers and five staff members.
Receiving the Bob Marshall Award is a great honor.