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Our Mission & Vision

Mission: We inspire connection, stewardship, and responsible use of the vast and diverse public lands of the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Vision: A future where all people feel a deep connection to the Bridger-Teton National Forest through education, partnerships and action, ensuring sustainable human uses exist in balance with land, water, and wildlife.

Our Mission & Vision

Our Story

The idea began in the early 1980s: Teton County locals wanted to donate money to make improvements to trailheads and other projects to support and enhance their favorite national forest. However, it’s not possible to donate money to the U.S. federal government. We needed a nonprofit to support the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

Friends of the Bridger-Teton was officially founded in 2019. Since then, we’ve used grants and donations—both monetary and in-kind items (like bear-proof trash cans and fire rings) to support the BTNF and help promote responsible recreation so that we can all enjoy the forest’s diversity and wealth of resources now and into the future.

In March of 2022, the Jackson Hole Travel and Tourism Board (JHTTB) awarded FBT $1 million of grant funding to support marketing and communications efforts focused on responsible recreation and on-the-ground ambassadors on the BTNF. This injection of grant funds into our organization represented a turning point and significant expansion of the impact FBT could have on the forest. The JHTTB continues to be a partner and funder of FBT’s work as an important pillar in visitor management and education in Teton County, Wyoming

Our master agreement with the USFS puts us in a unique position to help fill gaps in funding and capacity so we can do projects similar to the very projects our friends in the 1980s envisioned for the Bridger-Teton National Forest and more. We partner with businesses and NGOs to make stuff happen. Our forest ambassadors work diligently to educate visitors and prevent things from happening (like wildfires and human/wildlife conflicts), and our educational videos and materials help people prepare before they enter the forest.

 

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Infinite Opportunities for Exploration

The 3.4 million acres of the BTNF cross five counties and are managed by six ranger districts. The BTNF is the single largest mass of public land within the 15-million acre Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, itself the largest intact ecosystem in the Lower 48.

Videos de habilidades del senderismo

Estos videos explicá ¿cómo prevenir accidentes? ¿Cómo dejar un lugar mejor de como lo encontraste? ¿Qué encargar para una caminata? ¿Y cómo protegerse de y cohabitar con osos?

Videos de habilidades del senderismo

About the BTNF

The Bridger-Teton National Forest is bigger than Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks combined, and home to some of the wildest landscapes in the Lower 48. It has 3 Wilderness areas and more than 2,500 miles of trails, and contains the headwaters of the Green and Snake Rivers. People recreate, recharge, and find refuge on the BTNF. If you haven’t, please explore the forest, whether by skiing, hiking, hunting, fishing, or collecting firewood. Humans aren’t the only users of the BTNF, though: 74 species of mammals, 355 species of birds, six species of reptiles, and 25 species of fish live within its borders.

Our Staff

Cheyenne Sterck

Development Coordinator

Carlie Ideker

Interim Executive Director & Program Manager

Shane O’Brien

Project Manager

Jennifer Ricupero

Partnership Manager

Dina Mishev

Communications Manager

Our Board

Linda Merigliano

Karla Bird

Lisa Franzen, Co-Secretary

Kathy Gross

Marshall Durston

Chuck Butterfield

Tim Gardiner, Vice President

Ian MacLeod, Treasurer

Sharon Smitherman

Steve Markason, President

Karen Daubert, Co-Secretary

Ellen Fales, Board Member Emeritus

Forest Corps

We’re excited to introduce the Forest Corps, a new seasonal initiative designed to help fill critical gaps.

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Era Coriz

Ellie Zaher

Mickey Atkins

Abby Franklin

Ash Gunter

LeeAnn Shelton

Elly McFarland

Forest Corps Crew Lead

Partners

It takes a community to protect an ecosystem.

No one organization can steward a landscape as marvelously expansive, diverse, and complex as the Bridger-Teton National Forest. Always with the best interests of the BTNF in mind, we work with more than 100 partner organizations, including nonprofits like Friends of Pathways, Teton Adaptive Sports, and Tip Top Search and Rescue; government offices like Sublette County Weed & Pest, the Town of Jackson, and the USDA Forest Service; and also private companies like Kate’s Real Food, Roadhouse Brewing Co., and Dometic.

Our ability to be good stewards across a forest the size of Connecticut depends heavily on our ability to work with partners with shared values and priorities.

A huge thank you to all of our partners.

Interested in being a partner of Friends?

Become a Partner

FBT News

Going the distance for the Bridger-Teton

Every year, a determined group of cyclists rides 206 miles from Logan, Utah, to Teton Village, Wyoming, climbing three mountain passes along the way. Known as LoToJa, the event welcomes...

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Be BearWise This Fall

Wildlife managers across Wyoming are responding to numerous calls from the public about bears accessing unsecured attractants such as garbage, bird feeders, and domestic livestock such as chickens, goats, ducks,...

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Partnership Grows Wildfire Resilience and Tribal Youth Stewardship

The Wyoming Chapter of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Friends of Bridger-Teton (FBT), and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition (GYC) partnered together to expand forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction efforts across...

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Forest Corps’ Kemmerer District Glow-Up

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WyoFile Features FBT Forest Corps

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How to Dispose of Bear Spray

Everyone knows that carrying bear spray is essential when recreating in bear country. Harder to know is how to dispose of half-used or expired cans. Because bear spray is an...

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JHMR Lift Tickets & Lodging Support Stewardship of the BTNF

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort has operated on the BTNF for more than 60 years under a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service. Thanks to the Ski Conservation Fund,...

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Greys River’s Justin Laycock on the radio

Justin Laycock, Greys River District Ranger, stepped into the SVI Radio studio on Wednesday, August 26. Laycock summarized the current condition of the Fish Creek area south of Smoot, one...

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BTNF-FBT Ambassador Randy Roberts Hikes with VP Vance

Public lands are for everyone, including the Vice President. Ambassadors like Randy Roberts help take care of them.

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Thank You to Executive Director Scott Kosiba

On behalf of the Friends of Bridger-Teton board, we want to announce that our Executive Director, Scott Kosiba, has resigned to focus on his family and his newborn son.   ...

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@bridgertetonfriends Happy Bat Week! Worldwide, there are an estimated 1,232 species of bats, 18 of which are found in Wyoming with 11 different species documented on the BTNF. Bats constitute 15% of all mammalian species in Wyoming! Other fun /|\ ^._.^ /|\ facts Bats are the primary predator of nocturnal insects; many of the insects they consume are among North America’s most costly agricultural and forest pests. On average, bats can eat up to half their body weight in insects each night!Pregnant and nursing mothers will consume up to 100 percent of their body weight each night! Tequila is produced from agave plants that in the wild rely on bats as their primary pollinators. Less than 1% of bats carry rabies. Of the 1,400+ species of bats in the world, only three are vampire bats that drink blood. Shown in photo 1 is a little brown bat with White-nose syndrome. Sublette County remains free of the fungal disease (Pseudogymnoascus destructans) that causes White-nose Syndrome. (But little brown bats with WNS have been recorded in Teton County.) #batweek A prescribed burn starts Oct. 29 in an area considered one of the highest fire risk areas on the BTNF, the Taylor Mountain Unit. Located approximately six miles southwest of Jackson, off Fall Creek Road, this unit is in and adjacent to the Palisades Wilderness Study Area and also adjacent to the Hidden Hills Subdivision and Butler Creek. Fuels within the unit vary from shrub stepp to aspen stands and mixed conifer stands. Teton Interagency Fire staff will begin ignitions starting 10/29, focusing on piles created from contractor work completed two summers ago. Crews will work a northern section first, (see map in photo 2) and move down to the southern unit as weather allows. There will be several four person teams, each with one sawyer, cutting dead material, and several swampers moving the vegetation to the burn piles for consumption. A goal is for faster pile consumption during the burn hours; this will mean less smoke impact for the Hidden Hills neighbors. Ignitions are expected to take several days and crews will work Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays to give area residents a break from smoke. Please reach out if you have any questions and or like to come see the process. (Call 307-774-4209) There is one purple air sensor in Highland Trails and another on Bronco Road. There are air purifiers available for neighbors with any smoke discomfort; please reach out to Greg Nelson locally. We take stewardship seriously. Other things? Not so much. #bridgertetonnationalforest #stewardship AI is just the most recent tool helping more people get into the backcountry, which is great because you’re more likely to care about public lands if you experience them yourself. BUT, there have been some serious incidents in the news recently that underscore you shouldn’t use only AI to plan your outdoor adventures. A recent article in @highcountrynews has an article by @she.will.roam looking at some of the high profile AI-inspired backcountry adventures that went wrong. The article shares rangers’ advice, too: Regardless of the resources recreators use, when you’re headed to a new place, make sure you double-check your information against reliable, authoritative sources like up-to-date public-land agency maps and websites, trail association websites or guidebooks. Even better, talk to a real-live guide, a national forest official or a park ranger. “If you’re going to go into places that will kill you,” said Nick Meyers, U.S. Forest Service program manager of the Mount Shasta Wilderness Climbing and Avalanche Center in the High Country News article. “You should take your planning seriously.” Find the link to the article in our bio. #bridgertetonnationalforest #bridgertetonfriends #wyomingwildlands #wyomingwilderness A couple of hints: It is in the smallest of the BTNF’s three wilderness areas. The red hills in the distance are an exposed sandstone deposit leftover from when the region was under a shallow sea, roughly 50 million years ago. The vibrant red, orange, and vermilion hues come from iron oxide embedded within the ancient sedimentary layers. #Tuesdaytrivia #bridgertetonnationalforest

We acknowledge with respect that our facilities are situated on the aboriginal land of the Shoshone Bannock. Eastern Shoshone. Northern Arapaho. Crow. Assiniboine. Sioux. Gros Ventre. Nez Perce.

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