By Dave Johnston

Most people are in favor of supporting and preserving natural areas and believe they are doing so when they visit those areas. Most people will agree that they support and practice Leave No Trace principles when visiting the wild areas of West Virginia. Yet the wild and natural qualities of such areas continue to be threatened or degraded. 

Nowhere is this more evident than in the special wilderness of Dolly Sods, one of the jewels of West Virginia. That congressionally designated Wilderness and the Nature Conservancy’s adjacent Bear Rocks Preserve have seen a dramatic and ever-increasing influx of visitors over the past decade or so. Though the vast majority are well-intentioned, their cumulative effect leaves an unavoidable human imprint on the wild character of these unique natural areas.

Visitors are welcome in most natural areas. In fact, one of the underlying purposes of the National Wilderness Preservation system is to provide for and protect places where people can experience wildness as a refuge from the distractions of civilization. But especially in heavily visited areas, it becomes more important for each person to minimize the traces of their visit. By applying best practices in our outdoor behavior, we can collectively limit our overall impact on natural areas.

Which brings us back to Leave No Trace principles. While most people will readily subscribe to the idea of Leave No Trace, putting those ideas into practice may be another matter. Many people have a vague notion that Leave No Trace has something to do with picking up your trash (and indeed, that is one of the principles) but aren’t really tuned in to the meaning or intent of all the guidelines. So, they aren’t really prepared for applying the concepts to real-world situations.

The Dolly Sods Wilderness Stewards can help people apply these concepts. Trailhead Stewards are stationed at the busiest trailheads on weekends and holidays to greet visitors, introduce them to the wilderness, and help them plan for a successful and low-impact visit. Part of our job is to interpret the Leave No Trace guidelines in a way that highlights their applicability to Dolly Sods. 

For instance, one of the Leave No Trace principles is to travel and camp on durable surfaces. Obviously, a nice, compacted, and dry trail is both a pleasant and durable surface to hike on. But large sections of the trails in Dolly Sods are poorly drained and become extensive mud holes. Bypassing the trail means treading on the vegetation and habitat next to the trail, which kills the vegetation and degrades the soil so that it now becomes part of the mudhole, and the mucky trail becomes ever wider. In Dolly Sods, the most durable surface available may be the mud itself, and applying the LNT principle means celebrating the muck!

Similarly, the Leave No Trace principle of “Be considerate of other visitors” seems obvious; perhaps just something your mother taught you. But in a wilderness, which is in part created to provide an opportunity for solitude and an intimate encounter with nature, consideration of others may take on extra dimensions. Setting up camp near another party’s campsite may not be welcome, nor may be socializing. Leaving your gear in the middle of the view at an overlook may affect the experience of others at that overlook. Consideration of other visitors to an increasingly busy wilderness invites visitors to think of ways they can have their experience while minimizing their impact on others, and vice versa.

The Trailhead Stewards’ encounters with visitors are necessarily brief, and we can’t give even a short course on Leave No Trace principles at the trailheads. But by being aware of the particular vulnerabilities of Dolly Sods, as well as the most misunderstood Leave No Trace principles, we can work into most conversations some of the more critical special considerations for Dolly Sods Wilderness. 

No single conversation will cover all the things people need to know to ‘do Leave No Trace’ in Dolly Sods, and preserving its wilderness character in the face of overwhelming levels of usage will always be a challenge. But we believe that planting seeds of Leave No Trace consciousness in visitors will incrementally affect visitors’ collective behavior and foster a more proactive attitude toward personal responsibility for wilderness preservation. In the long run, this increases the odds of future people being able to experience wilderness as wilderness.

The Trailhead Stewards are trained not only in the seven Leave No Trace principles and how they apply to Dolly Sods but also in techniques for communicating them to visitors. We use a method called ‘authority of the resource’ to appeal to the natural good will and desire of most visitors to protect nature. As distinct from the ‘authority of the agency’ (‘because it’s the law’), this method enlists visitors in wilderness-compatible behaviors for their own reasons. The keys to this approach are to establish common ground, provide reasons for Leave No Trace actions based on the protection of the resource, and offer realistic alternatives to ‘less than Leave No Trace’ behavior.

We will be kicking off our 2024 season at the Dolly Sods trailheads in mid-May. Stewards will be stationed at the busiest trailhead on weekends and holidays and have the opportunity to influence the behavior of several thousand visitors. 

You can learn about applying Leave No Trace principles and the authority of the resource at the next training for new Trailhead Stewards on Saturday, May 18, at Seneca Rocks. The training will be followed by our annual all-Stewards picnic, which provides an opportunity to interact with veteran Stewards and learn from their experience as well. 

Being a Trailhead Steward requires no specific background, skills, or expertise other than a desire to support Dolly Sods. There is no minimum time commitment, and those who live far away or can only occasionally volunteer their time are welcome. The Conservancy provides a convenient means for volunteers to schedule themselves online for trailheads and shifts that work for their schedules. Stewards can join a private Facebook page and occasional gatherings for Stewards to share experiences and learning are planned.

To learn more about what we do, go to the Conservancy home page at wvhighlands.org and follow the links for the Dolly Sods Wilderness Stewards. Use the signup form to join the Stewards, and we will send you more information on the Trailhead Stewards and the training.