Dale Grooms

What is wilderness volunteers?

“Wilderness volunteers is a group that three or four individuals five years ago founded in order to provide service trips to give something back at an affordable rate. All trips are $198 and they are a week long. Usually, there are ten participants and two leaders, and they are affordable for people. Everyone can come. We accept all ages, all abilities, just not kids. But the older folks are a real gas on these trips and the younger ones have fun too. It’s like a week party in the wilderness doing something that you enjoy.”

What is your group doing here on Greenfire Preserve?

“Greenfire Preserve is 430 acres. We are trying to return it back into natural habitat…We have about 2,000 plants that we are trying to make a wildlife corridor…Hopefully, to prevent the people driving by from seeing the wildlife is one of the goals. The other goal of it is to provide habitat and food for the animals that come back here.”

What do you think about the proposal to designate the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness?

“I would love to see it protected…Wilderness is a national thing. It isn’t a state thing…We have friends in other states that come here, and we take them hiking. They have just as much right to that. If you look at the amount of wilderness there is in comparison to the entire United States, we don’t have much. And it just so happens that a lot of it falls in Idaho. Well, that’s where it fell. That’s the hand we were dealt, and I think we should take responsibility. We should save it.”