State of the Outdoors 2023 – Speakers

Carl Bauer is returning to the Pike and San Isabel National Forests as the Pikes Peak District Ranger after leaving nine years ago for a coast to coast tour.  He left Colorado to be the Deputy District Ranger on the Siuslaw National Forest, Oregon Coast National Recreation Area for three years.  Last May, he returned from being the District Ranger on the Ocala National Forest, just north of Orlando, FL for about six years.  He considers himself a transplanted Midwesterner, having attended high school and Purdue University in Indiana.  He credits his love for the outdoors being raised in Virginia, backpacking, white water canoeing, and hiking with family and friends.  Working for the Forest Service was always Plan A, instilled in him while participating on annual 18 day backpacking trips every summer out west, including Colorado, as part of his high school Environmental Sciences classes.

He volunteered after his college freshmen year to be a Wilderness Ranger on the White River National Forest.  He worked summers throughout college in Colorado for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  He graduated and worked as a River Ranger for the BLM in the early planning stages creating the Arkansas River Management Plan in the 1990s.  He also was exposed to working with partners in creating the Gold Belt National Byway Management Plan.  This experience instilled his belief that the Forest Service is at its best when working with partners.

The main priority on the Pikes Peak Ranger District is implementing the US Forest Service’s Wildfire Crisis Strategy.  The Pike National Forest is one of 21 national forests selected to receive additional funding and support to develop a strategy to better protect nearby communities within the Pikes Peak Ranger District.  The idea is to manipulate the vegetation, using a variety of mechanical tools and prescribed fire to help make these ecosystems more wildfire resilient, make the surrounding infrastructure (water supply, utilities) more wildfire resilient, along with making our communities more wildfire resilient.  Over one hundred years of fire suppression has left an unnatural large amount of fuels on the ground and over stocked, dense timber stands that will burn intensely, damaging the soil, if not thinned out and burned periodically.  Partners and the public will continue to play an important role in planning/implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy.

The Pikes Peak Ranger District is a busy place, near a large population, with lots of demands being asked of it.  Recreation continues to be an ever-increasing workload that relies heavily on partners to help manage. The local atmosphere, the public’s love for the outdoors and the resulting multiple volunteer organizations around this area, are a major source of energy for Carl and his staff.  Focus on the Forest is a huge help in removing tons of trash and abandoned vehicles/property from the forest.  Last year, our partners and volunteers contributed over 15,000 volunteer hours on the Pikes Peak Ranger District, the second most volunteer hours in Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota.